This is an off-topic answer, but I see no reason why this thread shouldn't be generalized to FizzBuzz equivalents in other careers (in fact, it might be interesting to do so). Our electrical engineering FizzBuzz is an introductory, Freshman-level voltage drop problem, found within the first chapter of any Circuit Analysis textbook:
R1 (N) R2
[VDD]-^^^^--*--^^^^----|
Given VDD, R1, and R2, compute the voltage at node N.
This works surprisingly well as a negative hiring filter. It's not intended to be a trick question at all: it can be solved with Ohm's Law:
I = VDD / (R1 + R2)
Vn = VDD - R1 * I
or faster and more intuitively using voltage dividers:
Vn = VDD * R2 / (R1 + R2).
What's disappointing is that a large number of senior undergraduate students are unable to solve this problem -- which I think makes it a good EE equivalent of the FizzBuzz problem.
>What's disappointing is that a large number of senior undergraduate students are unable to solve this problem
...Wat? That's like, one of the easiest questions you could ever be asked. As a senior undergrad in his final semester for EE (Computer Engineering specialization), could you give me an idea of some of the more difficult questions you would ask?
I was once given a boolean function, asked to implement it using logic gates. And then asked to optimize it based on a few criteria (for example: GNDs and VDDs cost a lot, reduce the gates, etc.)
The most annoying thing was, I was not expecting any gates related question so my optimizations were very... adhoc.
This works surprisingly well as a negative hiring filter. It's not intended to be a trick question at all: it can be solved with Ohm's Law:
or faster and more intuitively using voltage dividers: What's disappointing is that a large number of senior undergraduate students are unable to solve this problem -- which I think makes it a good EE equivalent of the FizzBuzz problem.