Let's think about it for a second: reading code is hard. We all know that. Reading code in "whatever language" that you may not know at all is nigh impossible.

Let's think about it for a second: reading code is hard. We all know that. Reading code in "whatever language" that you may not know at all is nigh impossible. These companies get a ton of candidates and tell them all to submit homework assignments that take at least 5 hours (in your case 12). Reading 12 hours worth of coding work is intense effort even when you know the language well. If you don't, it can take a multiple of that number of hours. Some programmer got 10-20+ of these completed tasks dumped in their lap. I can pretty much guarantee they never really took the time to read and review the code with anything close to sufficient care or attention. Doubly so if it's in a language they didn't know very well.