I'd say this is a bit extreme, even for a programming interview test. I think it assumes you've already done something like it in the past. But then, if you hav

I'd say this is a bit extreme, even for a programming interview test. I think it assumes you've already done something like it in the past. But then, if you haven't, then maybe you aren't a fit for this particular job. I once interviewed at a game/graphics startup and they asked me to implement a non-trivial graphics algorithm in a take-home test. I completed it successfully, but only because I've done graphics programming for decades, and in fact had implemented this very algorithm just months before in a side project. Someone without experience in that specific area of graphics programming would probably not have passed.