Citation needed..

Is there any reference showing that this is the reason that people were asking about linked lists?

There is the old joke that organic chemistry saved more lives than penicillin by preventing dumb people from reaching med school. It’s a silly joke but it rests on some correlation between the kind of thinking needed for this course and needed to be successful doctor or medical student. If anything there is probably a stronger correlation between the kind of thinking needed for basic algorithms and data structure questions and the thinking needed to be a strong programmer.