Not GP, but I'll add my 2 cents. It's to test that you have at least a tenuous grasp of the programming language at hand. It should be an absolutely trivial task and take only a couple of minutes to do.
It shows you can iterate over an array and use conditionals, something literally everyone should be able to do if they know the language. These kinds of tests are a quick way to screen out applicants who are straight up lying about experience with a particular language.
It's not like asking them to write a sorting algorithm or implement Dijkstra's algorithm, which requires specific knowledge of algorithms and isn't trivial to implement. And it's not some obscure brainteaser that has no relevance to their normal work.
Iterating over arrays and using conditional logic is something I do every day. In fact, I'd say that's basically 80% of what my job is.
It shows you can iterate over an array and use conditionals, something literally everyone should be able to do if they know the language. These kinds of tests are a quick way to screen out applicants who are straight up lying about experience with a particular language.
It's not like asking them to write a sorting algorithm or implement Dijkstra's algorithm, which requires specific knowledge of algorithms and isn't trivial to implement. And it's not some obscure brainteaser that has no relevance to their normal work.
Iterating over arrays and using conditional logic is something I do every day. In fact, I'd say that's basically 80% of what my job is.