(Context: In chess, a queen can move along a row, column, or diagonal to attack. The N Queens problem is to place N queens on an NxN chessboard such that no two queens can attack each other.)
No one does poorly here because they are "bad at chess algorithms." They might do poorly because they think they're bad at chess algorithms. But this is not a "chess algorithm." It's an algorithm, with a chess skin.
But, sure, if you're bad at chess algorithms, I'll give you this problem: Given an N by N boolean matrix (all falses), set N cells to true such that no two rows, columns, or diagonals have two trues.
Same question, but with a boolean skin. Now will you be able to tackle it?
So, advice: Don't assume you're bad at __ type of algorithm question. For the most part, this isn't true. At most, there's a tiny bit of knowledge to tackle it (so you're not bad at it; you just don't know something). Nearly every time I hear someone say they're bad at some type of question, it's actually just an insecurity. They aren't even missing any knowledge.
The only partial exception here is recursion/dynamic programming, which does have its own little approach.
At a higher level: Can you ask for a new question if you're bad at that type?
You could, but it's risky. If I ask you a question that really involves pointers and you don't understand them, then okay. But realize that this might be a deal breaker for me. I might need that knowledge, or I might be concerned about the tendency to give up.
You're probably better off just voicing something like: "To be honest, I haven't worked much with pointers. I'm happy to give it a shot though, unless you want to move onto a different question."