[danpalmer]

I disagree with you on this. The point of the interview as I read it was to test an understanding of closures, scoping, and really basic programming logic.

I've been asked similar questions in interviews, and when I haven't known the little bit of factual information required (in this case the existence of setTimeout and clearTimeout), I've asked to Google it, and my interviewers have always been more than happy to let me. I've passed interviews doing this. I've even had friends who do interviews tell me that 'googling an answer' is often the correct answer.

I personally think the choice of setTimeout/clearTimeout was a really good one because almost all JS devs will know it, but it's also really easy to find online if you know what you're looking for. This test is really about coming up with a good way to solve a problem.