Walk me through the three financial statements and, in one sentence each, how they connect.

What the interviewer is actually testing

A mixed round is not testing whether you know accounting and valuation; your resume screen already suggested you do. It is testing three meta-skills:

1. Retrieval speed under sequencing you didn't choose. Interviewers deliberately jump: statements question → bridge question → back to deferred taxes. Candidates who learned topics as isolated chapters visibly reload between questions; candidates who learned the connections (D&A sits in all three statements AND in unlevered FCF AND explains EBITDA vs EBIT multiples) transition instantly. Signal mastery by making the connection yourself: "And that's the same reason we add D&A back in unlevered FCF."

2. Consistency across your own answers. The most common elite-boutique move is to ask a question whose correct answer depends on something you said ten minutes earlier. If you defined unlevered FCF as pre-interest, and later discount it at cost of equity, you've failed even though each answer sounded fine alone. Strong candidates keep one internal model and every answer is a projection of it.

3. Composure and process on the miss. Everyone misses something in a superday. Interviewers watch what happens next: do you guess with false confidence (fatal), go silent (bad), or reason out loud from first principles (strong)? The scripted recovery: "I haven't seen that exact case. Let me reason through it. Enterprise value represents…" Then walk the logic. A reasoned wrong answer with correct process scores higher than a memorized right answer delivered shakily.

Two behaviors that reliably impress: stating assumptions unprompted (tax rate, "no other changes," mid-year vs year-end) and quantifying when the question allows it ("that would raise EV by exactly the $100 of debt, so the EV/EBITDA multiple rises while P/E is unchanged"). Both signal that you've done this enough times to have habits, which is what "polish" actually means.

The traps that kill mixed rounds

Trap 1: Answering the topic instead of the question. Asked "why do we add back depreciation on the cash flow statement," candidates deliver the full $10 depreciation walkthrough. The interviewer hears: this person has scripts, not understanding. Answer exactly what was asked, in one breath, then stop.

Say it out loud: "Because net income (the starting point of the cash flow statement) was reduced by depreciation, but depreciation is non-cash. Adding it back reverses a deduction that never cost us cash."

Trap 2: Forgetting to state the tax rate before a statements walkthrough. You dive into "net income falls by 10" and the interviewer stops you: falls by 10, or by 6? Now you're correcting arithmetic instead of demonstrating fluency.

Say it out loud: "Assuming a 40% tax rate: pre-tax income falls by 10, so net income falls by 6."

Trap 3: Mixing enterprise and equity metrics. Under pressure, candidates say "EV over net income" or compare a P/E across companies with very different leverage without flagging it. This is a graded-harshly error because the whole point of Module 2 was numerator–denominator consistency.

Say it out loud: "I'd never pair EV with net income: net income is after interest, so it belongs only to equity holders, while EV includes debt holders' claims. The consistent pairs are EV with revenue, EBITDA, or EBIT, and equity value with net income or book equity."

Trap 4: Treating cash as always 'subtracted because non-operating' without the second half. The full logic is that cash is subtracted in the bridge because it's a non-operating asset AND because an acquirer effectively gets the cash to offset the purchase price. Give one half and the follow-up ("so what about operating cash / minimum cash?") catches you flat.

Say it out loud: "We subtract cash because it's non-operating and effectively reduces the acquisition cost. Strictly, a buyer might treat some minimum operating cash as required for the business, in which case only excess cash belongs in net debt."

Trap 5: Contradicting your own FCF definition. You define unlevered FCF correctly, then when asked why WACC is the right discount rate, you say "because it reflects the cost to equity holders." The interviewer now doubts the earlier answer too.

Say it out loud: "Unlevered FCF is available to all capital providers (it's before interest), so it must be discounted at the blended required return of all capital providers, which is WACC. Levered FCF would pair with cost of equity."

Trap 6: Refusing to commit on a curveball. Asked "can EV be negative?", weak candidates hedge indefinitely. The interviewer wants a position with reasoning.

Say it out loud: "Yes. If a company's cash exceeds its market cap plus debt, the market is saying the operations are worth less than nothing, typically because the business is burning that cash. It's rare, and it usually flags distress or deep pessimism rather than a free lunch."