[sh4rks]

Sure, in a real world scenario you would Google the most efficient/elegant way to get the max item in an array. However in an interview situation, the interviewer is usually expecting a language agnostic approach, i.e. using loops.

[tloup]

That's my point, those questions are pointless. They don't show anything meaningful besides someones ability to learn a lot by heart. I mean, just based on the fact that someone asked if it was necessary to grind leetcode questions shows that you cannot gain any meaningful insight by asking questions like that.