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One simple question I ask is to count the words in a string. It's a warmup question and a way to get the candidate comfortable with the format of the interview and the optimal workflow (discuss requirements, propose an implementation, flesh it out in pseudo-code, translate pseudo-code to something that looks like code).

You certainly don't need rote for that, the algorithm is trivial for anyone who did well in their introduction to programming class.

Either the candidate "gets it" in about 10-15 minutes, or struggles for 60 minutes.