Yes I didn't see those comments.

Possibly, the "Is Python call by reference or call by value" question could be rewritten in a language independent form by providing correct syntax Python, the correct python output, and asking verbally "Given either this evidence OR your Python coding experience, is Python call by reference or call by value?"

I've never used Python. I breezed thru the theory and regex questions, presumably I could be a halfway decent Python programmer in a week or two, it looks reasonably non-tricky. Thats another issue, some jobs merely require syntactically correct code, others require good algos, and its a lot easier on the job to learn syntax than to learn algos.