What is a good score on Optiver's 80 in 8?

Candidates consistently report 56 out of 80 as roughly the passing threshold and 70 or above as a competitive score. Optiver does not publish a cut-off and is free to move it by role, region and year, so treat both figures as candidate-reported rather than official.

Does Optiver's assessment use negative marking?

Yes, on the timed sections. A correct answer is +1, a wrong answer is -1 and a skip is 0. Guessing on an item you cannot solve is negative expected value, so skipping is the correct play when you cannot see the route to an answer quickly.

Can I use a calculator on the 80 in 8?

No. It is mental arithmetic with pen and paper at most. The questions are built so that a shortcut beats long multiplication, which is what the round is testing.

How long is the full Optiver online assessment?

About 95 minutes across six sections, with the clock running continuously between them: 80 in 8, NumberLogic, Beat the Odds, Likelihood List and two Zap-N rounds. Zap-Q, the personality questionnaire, sits outside that and is not timed work.

Is this practice test the real Optiver assessment?

No. Outcry is not affiliated with Optiver and has no access to their questions. This sitting reproduces the publicly reported format - item counts, timings and marking rules - and generates every question itself, so no two attempts are the same.

How should I practise for the 80 in 8?

Build accuracy before speed. Drill plain arithmetic on its own until you are not making errors, then add the clock, then sit the full battery. Practising at speed while still making mistakes trains the exact habit the negative marking punishes.

Optiver

Optiver online assessment: the full six-section battery

A full-length sitting modelled on Optiver's published screening battery - 80 in 8, NumberLogic, Beat the Odds, the new-for-2026 Likelihood List, Zap-N and Zap-Q. Negative marking on the timed sections, and numbers chosen so a shortcut beats long multiplication.

Format

6 sections · 175 items · about 95 minutes
Negative marking on 80 in 8, NumberLogic, Beat the Odds - a skip costs nothing there.
No going back. Answer or skip, and the next item loads.
Every sitting is generated fresh - a retake is a new paper.

Sections

80 in 8 - 80 items, 8 minutes, 1 mark lost per wrong answer. 80 arithmetic items in 8 minutes. Integers, fractions, decimals and percentages, mixed.
NumberLogic - 26 items, 25 minutes, 1 mark lost per wrong answer. 26 sequences in 25 minutes. Identify the rule and give the next term.
Likelihood List - 15 items, 22 minutes, no negative marking. 15 ranking items in 22 minutes. Order three outcomes from most to least likely - new to the 2026 battery.
Beat the Odds - 20 items, 14 minutes, 1 mark lost per wrong answer. 20 probability and expected-value items in 14 minutes. Odds conversion, EV, complements.
Zap-N: number memory - 16 items, 12 minutes, no negative marking. 16 numerical working-memory items in 12 minutes. Hold the values, then act on them. One of the nine Zap-N games.
Zap-N: patterns - 18 items, 14 minutes, no negative marking. 18 abstract pattern and shape items in 14 minutes. These belong to the Zap-N battery.

What the 80 in 8 is

80 in 8 is the mental arithmetic round that opens Optiver's online screening: 80 questions, 8 minutes, no calculator. That is six seconds a question. The maths itself is nothing - two-digit multiplication, percentages, fractions of a number, a decimal here and there. What the round measures is whether you can do easy arithmetic accurately while a clock is taking six seconds off you per item.

It is the round candidates talk about, but it is one of six on the real battery. Clearing it does not get you through; failing it usually ends the application. The rest of this page is the whole sitting, in order, with the marking rules the published format uses.

The format, exactly

80 items in 8 minutes, single-entry numeric answers, no calculator and no scratch input beyond your own paper.

Marking is +1 for a correct answer, -1 for a wrong one, 0 for a skip. That is the rule that decides how you should play it: a blind guess is worth zero in expectation at best and negative in practice, so an item you cannot see the shortcut on inside a few seconds is worth skipping outright.

No going back. Answer or skip, and the next item loads.

The full battery runs about 95 minutes across six sections, and the clock does not stop between them.

What counts as a good score

The numbers candidates report most consistently are 56 out of 80 as the threshold that gets you through, and 70 or better as a score that puts you comfortably clear of it. Treat both as candidate-reported rather than published: Optiver does not publish a cut-off, it is free to move it by role, region and year, and a strong overall battery can carry a weak 80 in 8.

The more useful way to read those numbers is as a rate. 56 in 8 minutes is seven correct answers every minute, sustained, with wrong answers subtracting. Most people who miss it are not too slow - they are fast and inaccurate, and the negative marking quietly eats the difference.

How this differs from the real thing

Every question here is generated by Outcry. None of it is Optiver's material, and nobody outside Optiver has their item bank. What is reproduced is the format: the item counts, the clock, the marking rules and the kinds of question each round asks, all taken from Optiver's own published description of the process and from what candidates consistently report.

One section is not simulated at all. Zap-Q is a personality questionnaire of roughly 150 forced-choice statement pairs. It has no right answers and nothing to revise for, so there is nothing to practise.

Because the items are generated, sitting this twice gives you two different papers. That is the point of practising against it rather than memorising a fixed set.

What to drill before you sit a full mock

Do the arithmetic separately first. A 95-minute mock is a bad place to discover your times tables are slow, and the single highest-return thing you can do for this battery is raise your raw arithmetic accuracy at speed. The arithmetic drill is free and takes about two and a half minutes a run.

Then the sequences. NumberLogic is inductive pattern work rather than calculation, and it responds to practice faster than anything else on the paper because most of the patterns come from a small family - arithmetic, geometric, alternating, differences of differences.

Then ranking. Likelihood List is new to the 2026 battery and scores only the exact order, with no partial credit for getting two of three right, so it is worth meeting before it counts.

Accuracy first, speed second, in that order. Speed built on shaky accuracy is worth negative marks here, literally.

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 Optiver's own material.

A. 80 in 8

80 arithmetic items in 8 minutes. Integers, fractions, decimals and percentages, mixed.

80 items in 8 minutes, which is about 6 seconds an item. A wrong answer costs a mark here, so skipping is a real decision rather than a free option.

Example

62% of 400

Answer 248

Swap it: 62% of 400 = 400% of 62 = 248.

B. NumberLogic

26 sequences in 25 minutes. Identify the rule and give the next term.

26 items in 25 minutes, which is about 58 seconds an item. A wrong answer costs a mark here, so skipping is a real decision rather than a free option.

Example

3, 75, 8, 58, 13, ?

Answer 41

Interleaved sequences: odd positions rise slowly from near zero, evens drop rapidly.

C. Likelihood List

15 ranking items in 22 minutes. Order three outcomes from most to least likely - new to the 2026 battery.

15 items in 22 minutes, which is about 88 seconds an item. No penalty for a wrong answer here, so answer everything.

Example

Spot is 0.9590 dollars per euro. The 12-month dollar rate is 6.04% and the 12-month euro rate is 2.82%, both simple. How many pips are the 12-month forward points, as a signed number?

Answer 300.33

The outright is F = 0.9590 x (1 + 0.0604 x 1.0000) / (1 + 0.0282 x 1.0000) = 0.989033. Forward points are the outright less spot in pips: (0.989033 - 0.9590) x 10,000 = 300.33. Dollar rates are above euro rates, so the euro trades at a forward premium and the points are positive. The sign follows the rate differential and never the view on the currency: a forward is not a forecast.

D. Beat the Odds

20 probability and expected-value items in 14 minutes. Odds conversion, EV, complements.

20 items in 14 minutes, which is about 42 seconds an item. A wrong answer costs a mark here, so skipping is a real decision rather than a free option.

Example

You roll a fair die 3 times. Probability of at least one six?

50%
32.1%
42.1%
0.5%

Answer 42.1%

Complement: 1 − (5/6)^3 = 42.1%. Adding 1/6 each time double-counts.

E. Zap-N: number memory

16 numerical working-memory items in 12 minutes. Hold the values, then act on them. One of the nine Zap-N games.

16 items in 12 minutes, which is about 45 seconds an item. No penalty for a wrong answer here, so answer everything.

Example

3    29    24    18    3    23

Sum of the values above.

Answer 100

3 + 29 + 24 + 18 + 3 + 23 = 100.

F. Zap-N: patterns

18 abstract pattern and shape items in 14 minutes. These belong to the Zap-N battery.

18 items in 14 minutes, which is about 47 seconds an item. No penalty for a wrong answer here, so answer everything.

Example

✚  ■  ▲  ■
■  ●  ▲  ◆
●  ★  ▲  ■

How many ▲ appear in the grid?

Answer 3

There are 3.

Common questions

What is a good score on Optiver's 80 in 8?: Candidates consistently report 56 out of 80 as roughly the passing threshold and 70 or above as a competitive score. Optiver does not publish a cut-off and is free to move it by role, region and year, so treat both figures as candidate-reported rather than official.
Does Optiver's assessment use negative marking?: Yes, on the timed sections. A correct answer is +1, a wrong answer is -1 and a skip is 0. Guessing on an item you cannot solve is negative expected value, so skipping is the correct play when you cannot see the route to an answer quickly.
Can I use a calculator on the 80 in 8?: No. It is mental arithmetic with pen and paper at most. The questions are built so that a shortcut beats long multiplication, which is what the round is testing.
How long is the full Optiver online assessment?: About 95 minutes across six sections, with the clock running continuously between them: 80 in 8, NumberLogic, Beat the Odds, Likelihood List and two Zap-N rounds. Zap-Q, the personality questionnaire, sits outside that and is not timed work.
Is this practice test the real Optiver assessment?: No. Outcry is not affiliated with Optiver and has no access to their questions. This sitting reproduces the publicly reported format - item counts, timings and marking rules - and generates every question itself, so no two attempts are the same.
How should I practise for the 80 in 8?: Build accuracy before speed. Drill plain arithmetic on its own until you are not making errors, then add the clock, then sit the full battery. Practising at speed while still making mistakes trains the exact habit the negative marking punishes.

Practise the 80 in 8 on its own How the assessment is scored Mental math drill

Outcry is not affiliated with Optiver and has no access to their assessment content. This sitting reproduces a publicly reported format; every question is generated by Outcry.