as a newbie programmer myself, mostly versed in Python and C/C++, and with very very weak math skills... many of these questions would take me much longer to solve than most programmers. I could solve them, and likely in an unexpected way. anyway. The biggest issue is always going to be whether the applicant has the skills to learn. No environment is the same, and no skillsets and knowledge base are going to match up perfectly. So what the guy said previously about learning algorithms is probably the best comment here. I know next to nothing about most syntax, and I suck at math, but once I learn the methodology of an algorithm i can translate that to any language, with just a little bit of learning. the guy who cant learn is going to be stuck with a missmatched set of skills.