This reminds me of the Google phone screen article that went around recently where the recruiter was reading off a sheet of answers and failed the candidate because the candidate gave answers which were too technically nuanced to fit what the answer sheet said. And is also why these kinds of things are a terrible fit for recruiting experienced-to-senior-level people.
I am developing a rule of thumb for this: the more pointedly in-depth your technical question is, the more likely you produce false negatives through obfuscation of intent. The grandparent's "what does this mean" question suffers particularly from being in-depth without stating it. Every CS student who learns C gets the high level treatment of pointers. But in many cases, their class does not proceed on to examine what this looks like in assembly code, except in a separate course devoted to ASM or compilers where it might be mentioned obliquely that such a representation exists. That is a relevant skill, but you have to ask for it. An easier way to get there is to ask how a C compiler turns a pointer assignment into executable binary, working backwards from the output. There are now degrees of success, since the candidate gets to discuss how compilers work if they're really engaged. But a basic answer can still capture the essence.
