They could just write loops and remember that repeating the variable name with ++ is part of loop syntax without knowing what it means. Almost like text-generating AI would do it (ducks).

I don't know, but I also don't care much because it doesn't matter.

Again, can they quickly understand and apply the knowledge once it is explained to them is all that matters.

It also matter that they apparently wrote a for loop a number of times without wondering what each of those symbols actually does and just treated it as magic incantation.

In recent years it's very possible they either don't use a language where that syntax is ever required (python) or just use one of the foreach variants in pretty much every language.

I can only think of Python, but are people learning that alone these days? In every other language, I can't imagine not ever encountering a situation where you also need to know the index of the iteration.

But also in every language there's syntax sugar to get the index.

In reality it's honestly just better in 99% of situations.

not every language uses i++.

increment operators are a language design antipattern anyway, not some fundamental knowledge.

Maybe cheated, maybe third world country diploma mill, maybe sports scholarship