Genuinely unsure if this is a parody of interview techniques or not.

I shuffle each pile of resumes and throw half in the trash. I don't want to hire unlucky employees.

Not appropriate for an interview, but more a long-term thing to play with interns.

This sounds like a fantastic way to filter out non-native English speakers. Also anyone lacking exposure to archaic English, since "cleft" is rarely used outside of constructions like "cleft chin/palate".

"cleave" is of course alive and well but not everyone realizes "cleft" is a past participle of "cleave". "cleaved" is much more common as a verb where I'm from and "cleave" is not a very common verb to begin with.

So far the only person who was not amused by that test has been the English teacher!

I think that the test is actually better for people who do not recognize any of the non-latin roots. That way, they have to deduce everything from the context, which is indeed possible.

I will be helpful for German candidates, since most of the words used come from German

I thought it was easy to read...