This was my experience as well. You don't want to give any student an advantage. This extends to when a student brings you a proof and wants to know if the proo

This was my experience as well. You don't want to give any student an advantage. This extends to when a student brings you a proof and wants to know if the proof works. You can't actually tell them, because that would leak information about the correct solution. So in some classes, any discussion of the assignment (beyond asking if something in the assignment is a typo or not) is forbidden.