> ‘Isn’t learning fun? Oh, and here’s another one.’ > DO NOT FEED THE ELEPHANT. > ‘Now that,’ said Susan, ‘is good. You can’t obey it…’ > ‘… because there’s no elephant,’ said Lobsang. ‘I think I’m getting the hang of this…’ > ‘It’s an Auditor trap,’ said Susan, peering at a packing case.

Terry Pratchett, Thief of Time

Part of life is learning when you'll be rewarded for following the rules v.s. breaking them. Employers will sometimes ask their employees to break the law. Will you break it for them? They want you "on their side" - meaning they want you to takes risks for them. So what you are describing as a problem with the form looks like a feature to me.

The expectation on this varies very widely across cultures, and sometimes even between classes or other social strata within a culture.

And then if someone is on the spectrum, and they already know that they have trouble reading those wink-wink-nudge-nudge clues properly, they might stick with the rules as written simply because that's something objective that they can be sure they're interpreting correctly.

For sure! I don't mean it's universal at all - I'm saying the question is setup to catch people who are nor primed with the right enculturation. It's not good! It just is a good filter that selects for the sorts of people the business wants to hire.