Playing devil's advocate, maybe a junior frontend dev that doesn't trust that they understand what someone is asking for and pushes back on bits that should be obvious will perform better (in some contexts?) than one that doesn't.
For a junior role in particular, though, it really doesn't seem like that should be the threshold and it sounds like it was delivered poorly on top of that.
The car example is just stupid. Could you image how idiotic you’d sound beginning by asking is it a real car? You’re basically accusing your interlocutor of operating in bad faith (which they were).
Yeah, I think I agree. I was just responding to (what I saw as) sentiment that it was entirely unrelated to performance, which seems to overstate the case.
> Could you image how idiotic you’d sound beginning by asking is it a real car?
Tbh, "willing to sound like an idiot to double check assumptions" is probably something worth selecting for! I don't think that saves this question, though.
That interview question is basically, "We lied about an imaginary situation and were disappointed you failed to accuse us of lying mid-job interview."