Sure you need to understand some basic CS to pass a LC question, but it’s more about recognizing a pattern and having memorized the proper algo for that pattern.
If you were taking an algorithms interview 20 years ago, you’d have to truly know a huge breadth of CS knowledge. But now you can just memorize problems for a few months and never learn the true meaning of “why” a tree is the best data structure in x situation.
It was “gamed” when people learned that you could pass the interviews without truly understanding the material, if you just memorize the rules of the game and can recite them when asked.
