Quant mental math practice, Optiver-style
Fast, accurate arithmetic under time pressure is the first filter at most trading firms. Train it with timed sprints, +1 for a hit and -2 for a miss, exactly the format Optiver made famous. Free, in your browser.
The classic Optiver test throws 80 questions at you in 8 minutes and rewards speed with accuracy: each correct answer is +1, each wrong answer is -2, so wild guessing hurts. This desk recreates that pressure and adds calmer modes so you can build the skill before you race the clock, plus the multiple-choice screen other firms run.
Five ways to train
- Zen: no timer, no penalty. Warm up and groove the techniques.
- Timed: a fixed clock, answer as many as you can.
- Sprint 80-in-8: the full Optiver-style run, typed, with +1/-2 scoring and a personal best to beat.
- Sprint 60-in-6: the Flow Traders format, four options instead of typing, +1/-1, no feedback until the debrief.
- Shortcut trainer: the same multiple-choice questions without a clock, each one naming the trick (last digit, order of magnitude, decimal count, denominator, a bracket) that beats doing the sum.
Ten categories, three difficulties
Questions are generated on the fly, so you never memorize a set: addition and subtraction, multiplication, division, percentages, fractions and decimals, powers and roots, logarithms, and mixed number sense. Difficulty scales from clean two-digit work up to the awkward numbers that separate fast traders from the rest.
The "what comes next?" pattern questions from trading-firm online assessments live on their own desk now, Number Sequences: arithmetic and geometric progressions, second differences, interleaved chains, Fibonacci-style sums, primes and more, like 3, 7, 15, 31, ? They test a different reflex than arithmetic, so they get their own clock.
Try these in your head
Numeric answers accept a comma or a dot for decimals, and the whole desk is keyboard-first: type, press Enter, move on. Your accuracy per category is tracked so the daily workout can feed extra reps to your two weakest areas.