This is definitely a possibility! I've interviewed a couple of people and it seems like linked list questions were already traditional by the mid-90's. If "do you remember your formal CS education" was a part of the origin, we'd want to 1) look at CS syllabi from the 80's to see what they focused on, and 2) look at job postings from that time to see if they expected a degree. That'd provide some evidence for this being the case and suggest other predictions (were other common CS topics interviewed?)