Information on Optiver tests

[bondgirl]

Hi Aneesh and Metalloyd,
I can see that you are both also from Holland, and I was wondering whether one of you would answer a little question for me:
When you are invited to the 8 minute mental arithemetic test, if you pass the test do you do the other 2 tests there and then, or are you invited back at a later date to do those? I read on one website that if you get through you may even need to do an interview with an HR person. Is this the case?
Thanks for the tip about the pen Metalloyd!

 

[Metalloyd]

Yes..you will proceed to the next test immediately.

HR interview will not be on the same day- atleast it was not that way for me.

 

[bondgirl]

Thanks!

 

[Ajax86]

Hy guys,
I sent an e-mail to Optiver staff and they responded to me saying that, due to the fact that I live in Eastern Europe, I will have to take an online test in order to proceed to the next steps of the recruitment process( i guess that if i'll pass, I will have to go to Amsterdam) .
Had anyone taken this kind of test before?
How is it going to be conducted( they will give me a link or something)?
And it is the 8 minutes- 8 questions test?

Thank you.

 

[state]

Does Optiver have an office in London? I can't seem to find it

 

[AUM: £233.54]

Question, will they reimburse the travel costs (train ticket) if you travelling to amsterdam from within holland?

 

[camisado]

Does Optiver have an office in London? I can't seem to find it

No. Tests for UK applpicants take place near London, but Optiver does not have trading operations in UK.

Question, will they reimburse the travel costs (train ticket) if you travelling to amsterdam from within holland?

Optiver does reimburse plane ticket expenses, so I dont see why train tickets would be any different. Your best bet is to ask the HR lady.

 

[jker15]

are the first two tests like the tests on here?

http://www.tradertest.org/index.php

and if so, how difficult?

thanks

 

[shotashotasho]

I think it must be easier

 

[kavanarj]

First Post,

Just did the Optiver test. Study the following:

Multiplyig / dividing fractions, decimals, and then just addition, subtraction.

examples would include:

2/25 / 19/50 = ?

.06 -.0054 = ?

113 + 256 = ?

Four possible answers, with the bogey answers being fairly similar, ie, .6 , .06, 6.6, .54 or soemthing.

The minimun is 54, the grey zone is 48 - 54, grey zone candidates go through to the next round but I suppose have to do exceptional on the other tests in order to proceed.

All the best

 

[Brayne]

First Post,

Just did the Optiver test. Study the following:

Multiplyig / dividing fractions, decimals, and then just addition, subtraction.

examples would include:

2/25 / 19/50 = ?

.06 -.0054 = ?

113 + 256 = ?

Four possible answers, with the bogey answers being fairly similar, ie, .6 , .06, 6.6, .54 or soemthing.

The minimun is 54, the grey zone is 48 - 54, grey zone candidates go through to the next round but I suppose have to do exceptional on the other tests in order to proceed.

All the best

Hey kava, did you do the test in Amsterdam? Where are you based and what's your status with optiver right now?

 

[kyp]

can any one please tell me what is the maximum number of decimal places multiplication/addition/subtacrion they could ask in the test ?

e.g .. 0.0032 * 3.837 ??
3.84774 + 0.8389
are these sort of questions common in the test ??

 

[hopefultrader]

Re: Optiver test

Hi Jhwang,

Thanks for the reply. I had my Optiver test this monday and I cleared all the 3 tests. I am having a telephonic interview scheduled sometime next week. I would also appreciate if anyone can say what kind of things they would ask in the telephonic round ?

Thanks guys!!

cheers,
Aneesh

Hi Aneesh,

If you're still receiving mails from this thread, can you please let me know what level of difficulty the tests were? I can see that you have asked a similar question before i.e. 2 digit multiply 2 digits, or 2 with 3, etc. If you can give some idea, then that would be great.

Thanks.

 

[niceguy140]

Well, I did the test and and failed miserably, I tilted on the mixed numbers which I had seen for the last time in primary school... Anyway, I figured it was rather unfair that candidates weren't made aware of that kind of thing and in general I'm not sure it's the best way to select people, especially when people aren't quite used to using some of their notations. I know many people still do use mixed numbers, I know I didn't.
Anyway, after the test, I figured I would try to help people out, so that they would avoid tilting like I did on basic things like mixed numbers. So I coded a C++ command line simulator that contains all the kinds of questions that come up in the test.
The source code and binary files for Linux and Windows can be found at

https://github.com/john-dwuarin/fast-mentalAr

The code isn't the nicest and honestly, I wouldn't bother reading it if I were someone else. But it gets the job done. At the end of the 8 minutes, you get a small output telling you what questions were answered right and which ones were answered right. You also get how long you spent on each questions. I use the "/" sign for fractions and the : to indicate a division. That is the closest to the sign they use in their test which is the division sign and shouldn't shock anyone.
The Linux binary was compiled on a 32 bit machine, although it should run on any machine considering the program. Same goes for the Windows one, except that it was compiled on a 64 bit machine. The Linux binary might work for Mac users, I don't know. Worst case, compile the source code or use a virtual machine to run one of the two binary files.

Cheers,

niceguy140

 

[locksbox]

Well, I did the test and and failed miserably, I tilted on the mixed numbers which I had seen for the last time in primary school... Anyway, I figured it was rather unfair that candidates weren't made aware of that kind of thing and in general I'm not sure it's the best way to select people, especially when people aren't quite used to using some of their notations. I know many people still do use mixed numbers, I know I didn't.
Anyway, after the test, I figured I would try to help people out, so that they would avoid tilting like I did on basic things like mixed numbers. So I coded a C++ command line simulator that contains all the kinds of questions that come up in the test.
The source code and binary files for Linux and Windows can be found at

https://github.com/john-dwuarin/fast-mentalAr

The code isn't the nicest and honestly, I wouldn't bother reading it if I were someone else. But it gets the job done. At the end of the 8 minutes, you get a small output telling you what questions were answered right and which ones were answered right. You also get how long you spent on each questions. I use the "/" sign for fractions and the : to indicate a division. That is the closest to the sign they use in their test which is the division sign and shouldn't shock anyone.
The Linux binary was compiled on a 32 bit machine, although it should run on any machine considering the program. Same goes for the Windows one, except that it was compiled on a 64 bit machine. The Linux binary might work for Mac users, I don't know. Worst case, compile the source code or use a virtual machine to run one of the two binary files.

Cheers,

niceguy140

First of all, thanks for writing the program and sharing it!

I just cant seem to get it to work. Im on a win7 x64 machine and the exe doesnt seem to be playing nice. It says something about compatibility issues. Do you think you can compile another one?

 

[niceguy140]

Hey locksbox,

I've tested the Windows binary on three machines now, two 32 bit and one 64bit machine. Worked on all three. I've also gotten it to run without any problem on a Linux machine using a windows emulator (wine).
If it's a compatibility issue, I would suggest trying something like this out:

Using Windows 7 or Vista Compatibility Mode - How-To Geek

And trying all different modes until one of them works.

If it still doesn't, I would suggest trying out virtualbox to run install some Linux distro and then tun the linux binary from there.
Or if you don't want to do that, you can always try running it on some other machine. It should work on almost any machine actually.

Just for information though, what processor does your computer have?

 

[locksbox]

Hey locksbox,

I've tested the Windows binary on three machines now, two 32 bit and one 64bit machine. Worked on all three. I've also gotten it to run without any problem on a Linux machine using a windows emulator (wine).
If it's a compatibility issue, I would suggest trying something like this out:

Using Windows 7 or Vista Compatibility Mode - How-To Geek

And trying all different modes until one of them works.

If it still doesn't, I would suggest trying out virtualbox to run install some Linux distro and then tun the linux binary from there.
Or if you don't want to do that, you can always try running it on some other machine. It should work on almost any machine actually.

Just for information though, what processor does your computer have?

i have a intel i5. I ended up getting it working on my linux box after the windows was having issues with compatibility. I decided to redownload and try again. it decided to work for some reason! Thanks again for the sweet program and hello from Michigan, USA!

I am about to take the exam sometmie next week and I was hoping that you could answer a few more questions.

Do they mix operators in problems? (ex + and * in the same problem)
How big do the terms normally get? (any longer than 2 digits?)
Is there any mixing of decimals and fractions?
Are the answers sometimes extremely obvious as well? In your program, when there is a negative answer, sometimes there is only 1 or 2 negative answers that make it easy to figure out.

Thank you niceguy!

 

[niceguy140]

i have a intel i5. I ended up getting it working on my linux box after the windows was having issues with compatibility. I decided to redownload and try again. it decided to work for some reason! Thanks again for the sweet program and hello from Michigan, USA!

I am about to take the exam sometmie next week and I was hoping that you could answer a few more questions.

Do they mix operators in problems? (ex + and * in the same problem)
How big do the terms normally get? (any longer than 2 digits?)
Is there any mixing of decimals and fractions?

Thank you niceguy!

Hey again,

I'm glad you got it to work. The initial .exe file you got might have been corrupted during download or something. Anyway, the point is that you got it to work now.

From what I saw in the test, I could only answer no to all three of your questions. I coded every type of question that I saw, and there were no other questions. The trickiest part for me was the mixed numbers as I was really not used to seeing them at the time. However, they are coded and should come up with an average frequency of 1 every 8 questions.
All the other question types are exactly like I saw them (except that the fraction bar I use is "/" when they use an actual horizontal line).
I would also note again that I think the simulation is slightly harder than the actual test, although not much, and because of the randomness, some questions are deceptively easy (although many were really easy in their test too).
Anyway. I think that if you score around 50 on the simulation, you have a good chance to pass the test, although the simulator will only acknowledge that as of 54 points. And if you have the time, try reaching scores of 60 and higher. If that's the case, I don't see a reason for you to fail the real one unless you tilt really bad.

Cheers,

Niceguy

 

[hopefultrader]

Hey again,

I'm glad you got it to work. The initial .exe file you got might have been corrupted during download or something. Anyway, the point is that you got it to work now.

From what I saw in the test, I could only answer no to all three of your questions. I coded every type of question that I saw, and there were no other questions. The trickiest part for me was the mixed numbers as I was really not used to seeing them at the time. However, they are coded and should come up with an average frequency of 1 every 8 questions.
All the other question types are exactly like I saw them (except that the fraction bar I use is "/" when they use an actual horizontal line).
I would also note again that I think the simulation is slightly harder than the actual test, although not much, and because of the randomness, some questions are deceptively easy (although many were really easy in their test too).
Anyway. I think that if you score around 50 on the simulation, you have a good chance to pass the test, although the simulator will only acknowledge that as of 54 points. And if you have the time, try reaching scores of 60 and higher. If that's the case, I don't see a reason for you to fail the real one unless you tilt really bad.

Cheers,

Niceguy

Mate,

Many thanks for sharing your simulator and my apologies for the delay - I'm actually out on work and the only personal device I have access to is an iPad. CAn't get your simulation working on my office laptop - automatically blocked (argh, banks!).

Anyway, thank you very much for all your information. However, I was wondering and if it's not much of a bother, if you can please share the pseudo code or algorithm for your program. I just wnt to be able to see a full list of the type of questions I can expect and the difficulty level - given your experience, I think you'd know the importance of why I am so particular.

I do hope that you'd help.

Regards

 

[niceguy140]

Hey Hopefultrader,

Well, I'm sorry your office laptop is blocked for such applications.
I actually don't have any pseudo-code written down for the program, all I have is the source code that I'm sure you've already seen on github. The code is pretty hard to read, although if all you want to know is what the questions look like, you might want to look at the main function and seeing what functions it calls (the calls are commented) and then looking at the functions to try to figure out how they work. That might be a bit of overkill, especially if you're not comfortable with C++.
What I would suggest though, is just trying to get your hands on any computer that could run the test, quickly download the binary and run it on the computer. You can skip through all the questions and just look at what the questions look like. Surely in one run, all the types of questions would come up, and by the end of the 30 seconds it should take to quickly gloss over the questions, you should have a good idea concerning what the questions look like.

I hope that helped, as I can't really do much more...

Cheers