[alacombe]

> It wasn't really 'trivia'. It was several hours of difficult problem solving without reference material, given access only to a whiteboard and a judge

Even more irrelevant with today's access to Google, StackOverflow and alike. I've done my share of learning by heart pages of demonstration for some obscure quantum physic model, puking it the day of the test, and then forgetting about it. It the company is looking for an obedient monkey, well, I'll pass.

> Honestly, I'm OK with this now, because I am good at studying and learning.

But are you any good at analyzing a combination of problems never encountered before ?

[notyourloops]

> But are you any good at analyzing a combination of problems never encountered before ?

Haven't won a Nobel Prize yet, otherwise most work is done by first examining what I know vs. what I don't, and then using the appropriate tools (search, reference -> think -> implement/test -> discuss, as necessary) to accomplish the next steps.

Regardless of what I think and what I know, or even of my abilities to solve novel problems, the industry has decided upon its entrance exams.

Many times the problems vary on the surface, but the core concepts do not, and so the iterations and combinations thereof are solvable by polling previously encountered experience (study & practice).

[emodendroket]

The way to solve a problem you've not encountered is usually to break it up into smaller problems you do know how to solve, and it's easy to see how some rote learning could help here.