Quant research
Quant Research Screen - Free Timed Practice
Modelled on the long-form research online assessments. Distribution theory and stochastic processes in the first section, then look-ahead, survivorship and multiple-comparison questions in the second.
Format
- 2 sections · 26 items · about 40 minutes
- No negative marking - answer everything.
- No going back. Answer or skip, and the next item loads.
- Every sitting is generated fresh - a retake is a new paper.
Sections
- Probability & stochastic processes - 14 items, 22 minutes, no negative marking. 14 items, 22 minutes. Poisson processes, order statistics, Markov chains.
- Inference & research integrity - 12 items, 18 minutes, no negative marking. 12 items, 18 minutes. Multiple comparisons, look-ahead, survivorship.
What this sitting is
Modelled on the long-form research online assessments. Distribution theory and stochastic processes in the first section, then look-ahead, survivorship and multiple-comparison questions in the second.
2 sections, 26 items, about 40 minutes end to end, on a clock that does not stop between sections. Every question is generated fresh, so sitting it twice gives you two different papers and there is nothing to memorise between attempts.
How it is marked
No section marks negatively. A wrong answer costs nothing beyond the mark you would have earned, so there is never a reason to leave an item blank.
There is no going back anywhere in the paper. You answer or skip, and the next item loads, so every decision to leave something is final at the moment you make it.
Section by section, with a worked example
Every example below is generated by Outcry, drawn from the same generator that section runs during the timed sitting. None of it is any firm's own material.
A. Probability & stochastic processes
14 items, 22 minutes. Poisson processes, order statistics, Markov chains.
14 items in 22 minutes, which is about 1.6 minutes an item. No penalty for a wrong answer here, so answer everything.
Example 1
You draw 5 values independently and uniformly from [0, 1]. What is the expected value of the maximum?
- 1/5
- 4/5
- 1/2
- 5/6
Answer 5/6
For the maximum of n iid Uniform(0,1) draws, E[max] = n/(n+1) = 5/6.
Example 2
Regime Prob Mean Variance Calm 0.6 2 1 Stressed 0.4 4 25
Daily P&L runs in one of two regimes, drawn fresh each day from the table above. What is the variance of the daily P&L?
- 14.6
- 10.6
- 11.56
- 30
Answer 11.56
Law of total variance. The within-regime part is E[Var(P | regime)] = 0.6×1 + 0.4×25 = 10.6. The regime means differ by 2, so the between-regime part is Var(E[P | regime]) = p(1−p)(Δmean)² = 0.6×0.4×4 = 0.96. Total = 10.6 + 0.96 = 11.56. Averaging the two variances and stopping there drops the 0.96 that comes from the regimes sitting at different levels.
B. Inference & research integrity
12 items, 18 minutes. Multiple comparisons, look-ahead, survivorship.
12 items in 18 minutes, which is about 1.5 minutes an item. No penalty for a wrong answer here, so answer everything.
Example 1
A backtest uses the closing price to decide a trade placed at that same close. Which flaw is this?
- Look-ahead bias
- Multicollinearity
- Heteroskedasticity
- Survivorship bias
Answer Look-ahead bias
The rule consumes information not available at decision time. Live, you could not have known the close before trading it.
Example 2
A return model fits 5 regressors on 120 observations and reports R² = 0.1. What is the adjusted R²?
- 0.138
- 0.1
- 0.058
- 0.061
Answer 0.061
Adjusted R² = 1 − (1 − R²)(n − 1)/(n − k − 1) = 1 − (1 − 0.1) × 119/114 = 0.061. R² can only rise when a regressor is added, however worthless, so the unadjusted 0.1 rewards throwing variables at the problem. The adjustment charges 5 degrees of freedom, and here it costs 0.039.
Common questions
- How long is Quant Research Screen?
- About 40 minutes across 2 sections, 26 items in total, with the clock running continuously between them.
- Is there negative marking?
- No section marks negatively. A wrong answer costs nothing beyond the mark you would have earned, so there is never a reason to leave an item blank.
- Can I go back to an earlier question?
- There is no going back anywhere in the paper. You answer or skip, and the next item loads, so every decision to leave something is final at the moment you make it.
- Are the questions the same every time?
- No. Every item is generated from the archetype bank the format draws on, so the shape of the paper is fixed and the numbers are not. Two attempts are two different papers.
- Which firms run this assessment?
- No named firm runs this as an online test. The firms hiring for this role screen by interview instead, so this sitting models the work rather than anyone's test.
No firm runs this as an online assessment. The firms hiring for this role screen by interview instead, so this sitting models the work rather than anyone's test. Outcry is not affiliated with any firm and every question is generated by Outcry.