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What this C++ code-reading question tests

This is a medium-difficulty question that asks you to trace through a C++ code snippet and predict its output. It assesses your ability to read unfamiliar code quickly and accurately—a core skill in technical interviews where you may be asked to spot bugs, understand logic, or reason about performance without running the program.

Success requires careful attention to operator precedence, control flow, and any non-obvious side effects in the snippet. Quant interviewers value candidates who can mentally execute code, explain what happens at each step, and catch subtle mistakes before they cause real problems in production systems.

• Operator precedence and associativity
• Loop and conditional logic
• State mutation and variable scope