Even though it seems like an easy question, string manipulation always trips me up. I would hate to get asked this in an interview.

I give a harder problem and still think it's too easy.

Out of curiosity, what problem?

Collocation detection in pure Python. It shows me how they load files, split texts, count and sort. No algorithmic surprises in there, but lots of basics are covered. Surprisingly many fall at basic coding.

Like this https://python.plainenglish.io/collocation-discovery-with-pm...

Is it your expectation that the candidate completes all the tasks in 45 minutes to pass the interview? Or how much do they need to finish?