You have identified the purpose of these questions. They are determining your mindset when dealing with novel circumstances. Do you make an effort to explore and understand the actual constraints, or do you impose your own, preconceived notions on the scenario? Do you limit yourself needlessly?

The worst you can do is to treat it as a riddle and immediately give the “correct” answer. An interview isn’t a knowledge test. They aren’t trying to determine if you’ve seen and retained the accepted solution. They ask this sort of question to gain some insight into your problem solving skills.

A better answer is to step in to the question, and treat it like a real world scenario. Acknowledge the stated constraints, then explore them.

How much effort should we put into this problem? How much time and treasure are we going to spend on this? Why are we even determining which switch controls the light in the first place? What are the consequences of a wrong answer? If we’re going to get fired for a wrong answer, we should take our time and get it right. If the consequences are “go try again”, let’s just start flipping switches.

Do we have other resources available? Is there someone in the room? Can we put someone in the room? Is there someone else available who uses the switch regularly? Can we ask their assistance? (If the room isn’t being used often enough for anybody to know how the switches work, should it be repurposed to something more useful?)

Do we know that these are normal, simple switches? If they are three-way switches, or installed upside down, we can’t trust their position.

Is it safe to assume the bulb is functional? The “riddle” answer fails on this.

Is it safe to assume the bulb starts cold? Did they run this test with another candidate a minute earlier? Did they leave it in a “hot” state for us already?

Is the light accessible when we get into the room, or is it inside a ceiling fixture, 12-feet over our heads?

What are the other switches connected to? If they control fans or lights or other appliances that can be sensed outside the room, we don’t even need to leave the first room.

What is the necessity of the specific, given constraints? If this is a real-world scenario, we’re probably not going to have a limitation on entering the room only once. If we can eliminate that constraint, the problem is a lot easier to solve.

Get feedback from the interviewer: Have we adequately explored this scenario to their satisfaction? Is there some other aspect we need to address?

Blackberry insisted on a 3-row thumboard on the face of the device. I want a 5-row slider, like Samsung’s Relay.

magnet link

There are a number of potential fixes.

Universal healthcare is one. Completely separate employment from healthcare.

Restore the tax structure we had in our most prosperous decade: 91% top-tier rate. Nobody ever paid that rate; nobody will ever pay that rate. That rate compels businesses to spend $10,000 on “business expenses” rather than keep $900 and pay Uncle Sam $9100. They get to keep $10,000 worth of tangible goods and services, purchased on the market. Or, $900 cash, that they can convert into financial instruments.

We could assign all healthcare bills to the richest person in the country. When we take enough from Musk that Bezos catches up, they can split the bill between them. When they get down to Zuck, they split it three ways. Nobody gets to be the richest. The competition switches from dollars to number of lives saved.

Or, we could roll out the guillotines again. Behead the most problematic tranche of capitalists (as evidenced by their degree of wealth). Repeat as necessary.

The capitalist fucks are swinging the whip. The 25-hour limit is the whip they are swinging. Both are a problem.

We need to just make the richest person in the country financially responsible for all healthcare.

When Musk falls to #2, he can share the load with Bezos. When Bezos and Musk tie him for third, Zuck gets to join the party. Nobody gets to be the richest American. At that point, they get to brag about how many lives they are responsible for saving instead of how much damage they’ve done to the rest of us.

Welp, the midterms are finally going to be all about universal healthcare.

Yo ho, all together…

Corn cares not from whence the shit posts

FTFY. “Whence” means “from what origin”.

Ninety percent of the time it has no bearing on anything the doctor will be doing

I would tend to agree with you if that were the case. But, I would ask you to quantify your claim.

According to ACEP, 48 in 100 ER patients will undergo simple radiograph procedures (some form of X-rays), while 27 in 100 will undergo CT imaging. Both pose significant dangers to a fetus, if present.

Based on that data, at least 48% to 75% of the time, the question does, indeed, have bearing on something the doctor will be doing. Is that sufficiently high enough to prioritize determining whether there is a second patient in the room?

There’s plenty of time later on in the exam

You’re assuming that she’s not going to quickly lose consciousness due to shock or blood loss. That is not a particularly safe assumption.

I would say this is not universal. For some, the written word is the native “tongue”, conveying the actual, intended meaning. The written word allows the speaker the opportunity to evaluate and revise their language to match their intent, and the listener the opportunity to re-evaluate previously transmitted thoughts.

The oral variant is dependent on the real-time aptitude of the speaker to articulate their thoughts and message, and for the listener to extract that meaning from the same. For those of us handicapped in these traits, the spoken word is the poor facsimile for actual (written) communication.

I think “whence” is a near-perfect example. “Whence” means “from what origin”.

The word is used nearly exclusively in the phrase “from whence it came”, or “from (from what origin) it came”

I would call that “fraud”. In declaring themselves “gynecologists”, they are effectively advertising that they are qualified and willing to perform routine gynecological procedures. Their refusal to do so constitutes a fraud on patients seeking such services.

“Neonatology”, “Histology”, “Reproductive physiology” and “Reproductive biology” are comparable specialty fields wherein the practitioner would not be expected to perform elective abortions.

Additionally, if they would prefer to call themselves “general practitioners”, I would be far more lenient in allowing them to define their own scope of practice.

Fair Ok

FTFY.

I’m a gynecologist. My religion says I can’t do an abortion.

I would say that if “you” won’t perform an abortion, “you” are not actually a gynecologist. Go study and practice urology, or proctology, or gastroenterology, or oncology, or neurology, or cardiology, or dermatology, or any other field where “you” will not be called upon to perform a simple, routine procedure.

The crank stations? Or their users?

My old PC locks up every 4 to 48 hours. It would make a terrible NAS.

Your own fault for living west of your workplace.

Perfectly good billionaires and hundred millionaires all over the place, and someone’s taking pot shots at guardsmen?

Unbelievable.