PRACTICE GUIDE IMC TRADING
IMC Trading Quant Trader Screen Practice
The IMC Trading quant trader screen screen is 15 questions in 20 minutes - about 80 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: Quant trader screen. 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.
- ✓Expected value computed fast and used to make a decision
- ✓Conditional probability and Bayes updates without formal notation
- ✓Ranking likelihoods rather than computing them exactly
- ✓Fermi estimation: decomposing an impossible question into three easy ones
Where it sits at IMC Trading
This section does not arrive on its own. It closes the paper, and the sitting around it runs 65 minutes and 75 items in total, with Reflex battery 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 | 15 |
|---|---|
| Time | 20 minutes |
| Per question | 80 seconds |
| Negative marking | No |
| Answer style | Typed numeric answer, no calculator |
| Where it sits | Quant trader screen |
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.
Conditional probability
Bayes' rule in disguise: a test result, a signal, a drawn card, and what it implies.
Example
X counts heads in 400 flips of a coin that lands heads 50% of the time. What is Var(X)?
Answer 100
Binomial variance np(1−p) = 400·0.5·0.5 = 100.
Counting and combinatorics
Arrangements, selections and the complement trick that turns a hard count into an easy one.
Example
20 parcels are dropped independently and uniformly into 15 chutes. What is the expected number of chutes left empty?
Answer 3.77
Indicator per chute: it stays empty when all 20 parcels miss it, probability (1 - 1/15)^20 = 0.252. Times 15 chutes = 3.77. When the two counts match, (1 - 1/n)^n is about 1/e, so roughly a third stay empty.
Estimation under uncertainty
A number nobody knows exactly, reasoned to the right order of magnitude out loud.
Example
Plate 12 19 Weld 12 14 17 Trim 15 16 Kiln 14 16 19 Ana: "I do not know which job it is, and I can tell that Ben does not know either." Ben: "I did not know it before, but I do now." Ana: "Then I know it too."
One maintenance job is booked. The list above gives every possibility as a workshop and a slot number. Ana is told the workshop only. Ben is told the slot only. Both know the list and both hear each other. Which job is it?
- Plate, slot 12
- Kiln, slot 19
- Kiln, slot 14
- Kiln, slot 16
Answer Plate, slot 12
Work the statements as filters over the 10 listed jobs. Ana knowing Ben cannot know means every slot in Ana's workshop appears at least twice on the list, which leaves 5: Plate, slot 12; Plate, slot 19; Kiln, slot 14; Kiln, slot 16; Kiln, slot 19. Ben then knows, so his slot is unique among those 5, leaving 3: Plate, slot 12; Kiln, slot 14; Kiln, slot 16. Ana then knows, so her workshop is unique among those, leaving Plate, slot 12. Each statement is information about what the speaker could rule out, not about the job itself.
Ranking outcomes
Ordering several events by likelihood, where only the exact order scores.
Example
An index trades at 44.16, the 6-month rate is 2.08% continuously compounded, and the index throws off a continuous dividend yield of 3.26%. What is the fair 6-month forward level?
Answer 43.9
Holding the index costs the funding rate and pays the dividend yield, so only the difference is carried: F = 44.16 x e^((0.0208 - 0.0326) x 0.5000) = 44.16 x 0.994117 = 43.900. The net carry is -1.18%, so the forward trades below spot. Leaving the dividend out gives 44.622. When the dividend yield exceeds the funding rate the whole forward curve inverts, and that is not a signal about direction, only about carry.
Waiting times and repeated trials
How long until the first success, and why the answer is rarely the average you expected.
Example
How many observations are needed for a 95% confidence interval of half-width 2.5, when the standard deviation is 25?
Answer 385
n = (1.96σ/w)². Call it 2: (2 × 25/2.5)² = 400, which overshoots by 4%.
Reading the question exactly
At least, exactly, and given that - the three phrases that change the answer entirely.
Example
In a code, HEDGE is written as JGFIG. How is YIELD written in the same code?
- AKGNF
- WGCJB
- DLEIY
- BLHOG
Answer AKGNF
Every letter moves forward 2 places in the alphabet: H becomes J. Applying the same shift to YIELD gives AKGNF.
What a good score looks like
On a paper of 15 questions with no penalty for a wrong answer, the only thing an unanswered question can do is cost you. Probability rounds are usually marked as part of a wider battery, so a standalone threshold is rarely reported. Where candidates do describe one it clusters around getting two thirds of the items right, with the caveat that these sections are short enough that two mistakes move you a long way.
How to train for it
- 01Work the standard results until they are recall, not derivation: complement, conditional, binomial mean and variance, geometric expectation.
- 02Practise setting up before calculating. Most wrong answers on these are a correct calculation of the wrong quantity.
- 03Do them timed. A probability question you can solve in four minutes and the paper gives you ninety seconds for is a question you cannot solve.
TRAIN IT HERE
The drills that match each section
Likelihood Ranking
Order events from most to least likely - the exact screen-question format.
Fermi Estimation
Piano tuners in Chicago, atoms in a body - scored on order of magnitude.
Quitters Never Lose
A casino stopping-strategy game that is secretly a martingale lesson.
Tail Risk
Rare events and fat tails, and what they do to a plain expected-value estimate.
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 quant trader screen 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 quant trader screen test?
- 15 questions in 20 minutes, which is about 80 seconds each.
- Is there negative marking on the IMC Trading quant trader screen 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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