I once didn’t get my dream job because they had some mental maths thing that we all had to pass.
I hadn’t done the four fifths of 22 means it’s Tuesday stuff in 20 years and couldn’t do it without a lot of practice. If they’d asked me to do a presentation, or some questions about programming and project management I’d have had a fighting chance. I can do most of the programming problems without any prep - been doing it 22 years.
It was also very ageist, I don’t do those kind of puzzles. I got my degree (1987) when most of the people in the room weren’t even zygotes, if I’d had this kind of quiz then I would probably have aced it. I got a very high mark on the Java Certification exam, but that was because I studied for it. There was no way to practice for this kind of thing. In retrospect I’m glad I failed, because they must be idiots if they think it makes any difference.
Just a lazy way for the Human Resources (erm - I’m a person, hello??) to sieve people and be ageist without appearing to be. If they ask questions like that it’s because they have nothing useful to do. Plus it cost me a train ticket to London, and they ain’t cheap.