something about metrics and targets. When I got my first programming job, one of the reasons they hired me, apparently, was because I knew what components I had in my PC at home. If they had published the question beforehand and everybody knew to study it, it would no longer have made sense to use that question as a filter. You want the people who knew this stuff anyway, with no expectation of reward
Exactly. If a random person born after 2000 has a preference between a 6502 and a z80, for example, I'd just hire them on the spot.