I think the best strategy is to try to emulate how you actually work as close as possible. If in the former case a candidate were expected to get started, it's

I think the best strategy is to try to emulate how you actually work as close as possible. If in the former case a candidate were expected to get started, it's probably indicative to the culture of engineering that the behavior is valued. If they are one that likes asking questions and clarifying before working on it, and that's counted as a negative, at least they won't be in a situation where how they normally approach problems is always criticized, seen as a 'weakness' and probably brought up in reviews.