PRACTICE GUIDE IMC TRADING
IMC Trading Reflex Battery Practice Test
The IMC Trading reflex battery screen is 60 questions in 45 minutes - about 45 seconds each - answered by typing the number, with no calculator. There is no negative marking, so leaving an item blank gains you nothing over guessing.
Where it sits: Reflex battery, first online round. The practice sitting on this page runs the same item count, the same clock and the same marking rule, with questions generated by Outcry rather than taken from IMC Trading.
Outcry is not affiliated with IMC Trading and has no access to their assessment content. This guide describes an assessment format that candidates report publicly; the questions here are generated by Outcry and are not IMC Trading’s own.
What it screens
A market maker founded in Amsterdam, trading on exchanges worldwide with desks in Chicago, Sydney and Mumbai.
- ✓Two-digit multiplication and division without writing anything down
- ✓Fraction and decimal conversion at a glance
- ✓Percentage moves in both directions (a 20% drop needs +25% to recover)
- ✓Knowing when to skip: negative marking punishes guessing
Where it sits at IMC Trading
This section does not arrive on its own. It opens the paper, and the sitting around it runs 65 minutes and 75 items in total, with Quant trader screen on the same continuous clock. Candidates who prepare only for this round tend to be caught by the pacing of the rest.
There is no going back. You answer or skip, and the next item loads, which means the decision to leave an item is final at the moment you make it.
The format
These are the numbers the IMC Trading sitting on this site runs on, matching the format candidates report.
| Questions | 60 |
|---|---|
| Time | 45 minutes |
| Per question | 45 seconds |
| Negative marking | No |
| Answer style | Typed numeric answer, no calculator |
| Where it sits | Reflex battery, first online round |
What it tests, with a worked example
Every example below is generated by Outcry, drawn from the same question generators the timed drills run. None of them is IMC Trading’s.
Two-digit multiplication
Products you are expected to reach by splitting rather than by long multiplication.
Example 1
45 × 55
Answer 2475
(50−5)(50+5) = 50² − 5² = 2500 − 25 = 2475.
Example 2
6/7 × 14
Answer 12
14 ÷ 7 = 2, then × 6 = 12.
Example 3
25²
Answer 625
25² = 625.
Fast division
Exact quotients where the divisor is chosen to make a shortcut available.
Example 1
44²
Answer 1936
Anchor on 40: 44² = 40² + 2 × 40 × 4 + 16 = 1600 + 320 + 16 = 1936.
Example 2
1/3 of 18
Answer 6
18 ÷ 3 = 6, then × 1 = 6. Divide before you multiply and the numbers stay small.
Example 3
22.5 ÷ 0.5
Answer 45
Scale both by 10: 225 ÷ 5 = 45. A decimal divisor is only ever a whole one in disguise.
Fractions and decimals
Converting between the two on sight, and reducing without pencil work.
Example 1
Decrease 600 by 10%
Answer 540
10% of 600 is 60, so the answer is 600 − 60 = 540.
Example 2
67 + 80 + 33 + 81
Answer 261
Pair them: 67 + 80 = 147, 33 + 81 = 114, total 261.
Example 3
25% of 25% of 400
Answer 25
Multiply the fractions first: 25% × 25% = 6.25%, and 6.25% of 400 = 25.
Knowing when to skip
On a negatively marked paper an item you cannot see a route through is worth leaving.
Squares and near-squares
Products a step either side of a square, where the difference-of-squares identity is faster than multiplying.
Example
B6 B6 A3 A19 B15 B7
A means add 7 to the number. B means multiply it by 2. What do the six results add to?
Answer 104
B6→12, B6→12, A3→10, A19→26, B15→30, B7→14, which adds to 104.
Order of operations under pressure
Items written to punish reading left to right instead of resolving the structure first.
Example 1
181 × 21 = ?
Answer 3801
181 × 20 = 3,620, plus 181 × 1 = 181, giving 3,801.
Example 2
26 × 34 = ?
Answer 884
26 × 30 = 780, plus 26 × 4 = 104, giving 884.
Example 3
Two fair dice are rolled. What is the chance the total is 9, as a percentage?
Answer 11.1
4 of the 36 ordered outcomes total 9, so 4/36 = 11.1%.
What a good score looks like
On a paper of 60 questions with no penalty for a wrong answer, the only thing an unanswered question can do is cost you. Candidates most often report a pass mark around 70 per cent of the questions attempted correctly, with the strongest scores well above that. Nothing here is a published figure: firms move these by role, region and year, and most never state them at all.
How to train for it
- 01Sit a full timed screen end to end, so the pacing decisions happen under the same pressure as the real thing.
- 02Work the operation you avoid. Almost everyone has one - long division, or fractions, or subtraction with a borrow - and it is where the dropped marks cluster.
- 03Learn a handful of identities rather than more speed: difference of squares, multiplying by 11, halving and doubling. They convert a hard item into an easy one.
TRAIN IT HERE
The drills that match each section
Arithmetic Drill
2.5 timed minutes of exactly this question mix, with a ghost of your best past run to race.
Duck Duck Dash
Endless mental-math runner - one mistake ends the run, and the questions climb through ten difficulty tiers.
Sequence Sprint
Pattern recognition under the same per-question time pressure.
SIT THE FULL BATTERY
All the sections back to back on one clock, marked the way the real screen marks them, with a by-skill breakdown at the end. Included with any pass.
Also reported at IMC Trading
Common questions
- Is the IMC Trading reflex battery test multiple choice?
- Typed numeric answer, no calculator. You type the number, so there is nothing to eliminate your way to.
- How long is the IMC Trading reflex battery test?
- 60 questions in 45 minutes, which is about 45 seconds each.
- Is there negative marking on the IMC Trading reflex battery test?
- No. A wrong answer costs nothing beyond the mark you would have earned, so leaving an item blank is never better than guessing at it.
- How do I practise for it free?
- Every drill linked on this page is free to play, with no account, inside a daily run cap. Questions are generated fresh each run, so there is nothing to memorise between attempts. The full IMC Assessment sitting puts the sections back to back on one clock.
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