Horrible. If you asked for a sort and they used bubblesort there would be an issue.. if you asked explicitly for a bubblesort then there could be a good reason. Just like doing a generic class for a test that you would never use in real code.. I generally assume an interviewer ISN'T out to trick me, but to actually test what I know. You sound like the PhD interviewer someone else mentioned who was too caught up in how clever they are to make relevant tests.