“I was just asked to balance a Binary Search Tree by JFK's airport immigration”

Re:“I was just asked to balance a Binary Search Tree by JFK'... by vickychijwani on Monday February 27, 2017 @06:41AM (#13743509)

I have a theory on how CBP is trained to scan people, that seems more plausible without assuming malicious intent: they're not expecting you to know exactly how to balance a BST, but just enough to hold a conversation about it while they look for telltale signs. My guess is that even a reply like, "Look, I'm a self-taught web developer and I don't deal with algorithms day-to-day, sorry. But you can ask me web dev questions if you wish." would work.

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Re:“I was just asked to balance a Binary Search Tree by JFK'... by Main_ on Monday February 27, 2017 @09:01AM (#13744178)

Agent: "wrong answer,you are not allowed entry, good bye".

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Re:“I was just asked to balance a Binary Search Tree by JFK'... by umanwizard on Monday February 27, 2017 @09:26AM (#13744397)

What reason do you have to believe this would happen?

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Re:“I was just asked to balance a Binary Search Tree by JFK'... by deskamess on Monday February 27, 2017 @09:55AM (#13744623)

In many government jobs, the criteria for moving a task forward is the ability to check off a tick box. So you do not admit you do not know the answer; you give a plausible answer that lets the officer check the box. That's the case for most govt questions. Very little depth is required in the answers as not everything can be validated in the timespan of an interview. So admit you know what a binary tree is and talk about it in high level terms. Unless the officer was a previous programmer, the checkbox gets checked.

When you say you do not know or answer a different question, it makes it harder to check that box off. Most officials just want to check a box and move you (and themselves) on. Don't make it difficult for them.

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Re:“I was just asked to balance a Binary Search Tree by JFK'... by rlpb on Tuesday February 28, 2017 @06:49PM (#13759466)

You assume that the box says next to it "can answer questions about his career specialism correctly". It probably doesn't. More likely it says "does not appear nervous when asked about his career specialism, and appears to know topics he claims to know" or something more like that.

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Re:“I was just asked to balance a Binary Search Tree by JFK'... by akamaozu on Monday February 27, 2017 @02:29PM (#13747133)

Sounds like your assumption, not fact.

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