I don’t have experience with interacting with these questions in an interview, but I think these questions are supposed to be a test of problem solving ability, which could be relevant in some jobs like programming, I suppose. I still think it’s stupid though.
This question in particular I’m pretty sure has a BS “outside the box” answer, where “outside the box” really means “the question is very misleading and to solve it you have to realize that when we explained this scenario, we heavily implied a set of abstracted rules you could try to solve, but we actually want you to “think outside the box” and come up with a different set of rules that, if you thought we were asking this question in good faith, you would have assumed is obviously cheating”, which isn’t relevant to programming skills and is also just ridiculous.
(I think the answer is :
Tap for spoiler
Turn one switch “A” on, and keep it on for some time. Turn it off, and turn another one “B” on. Go into the room. If the bulb is on, B controls it. If it’s off but warm, A controls it. If it’s off and cold, C controls it.
:::)
I don’t have experience with interacting with these questions in an interview, but I think these questions are supposed to be a test of problem solving ability, which could be relevant in some jobs like programming, I suppose. I still think it’s stupid though.
This question in particular I’m pretty sure has a BS “outside the box” answer, where “outside the box” really means “the question is very misleading and to solve it you have to realize that when we explained this scenario, we heavily implied a set of abstracted rules you could try to solve, but we actually want you to “think outside the box” and come up with a different set of rules that, if you thought we were asking this question in good faith, you would have assumed is obviously cheating”, which isn’t relevant to programming skills and is also just ridiculous.
(I think the answer is :
Tap for spoiler
Turn one switch “A” on, and keep it on for some time. Turn it off, and turn another one “B” on. Go into the room. If the bulb is on, B controls it. If it’s off but warm, A controls it. If it’s off and cold, C controls it. :::)