PRACTICE GUIDE MARSHALL WACE
Marshall Wace Quantitative Paper Practice
Outcry’s Marshall Wace quantitative paper practice section has 18 questions in 120 minutes. These numbers describe the linked mock; the source check below distinguishes published details from practice settings.
Outcry matches the published question count and scoring. The generated numeric questions, 120-minute practice clock, topic allocation and back navigation are Outcry settings; we do not claim to reproduce the confidential test.
Outcry is not affiliated with Marshall Wace 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 Marshall Wace’s own.
What it screens
A London-based global hedge fund known for TOPS, its systematic long/short equity platform.
- ✓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 Marshall Wace
Marshall Wace lists an in-person test as its first assessment stage after CV screening. Pearson’s candidate page states 18 questions: +2 correct, −1 incorrect, 0 unanswered.
Practice stage: First assessment stage · in-person test. Outcry matches the published question count and scoring. The generated numeric questions, 120-minute practice clock, topic allocation and back navigation are Outcry settings; we do not claim to reproduce the confidential test.
The format
These are the settings used by Outcry’s Marshall Wace practice sitting. They are not automatically the employer’s published format; see the linked assessment’s source check.
| Questions | 18 |
|---|---|
| Time | 120 minutes |
| Per question | 6.7 minutes |
| Negative marking | Yes - a wrong answer costs a mark |
| Answer style | Typed numeric answer, no calculator |
| Where it sits | First assessment stage · in-person test |
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 Marshall Wace’s.
Expected value and odds
Pricing a bet, converting between odds and probabilities, and deciding whether to take it.
Example
Roll 2 fair dice. Probability every die shows a six?
- 1/216
- 1/36
- 2/6
- 1/12
Answer 1/36
Independent rolls multiply: (1/6)^2 = 1/36.
Counting and combinatorics
Arrangements, selections and the complement trick that turns a hard count into an easy one.
Example
A drawer holds 11 fair test coins and one with heads on both faces. One is taken out at random and tossed repeatedly, coming up heads every time. How many heads in a row are needed before the probability that it is the two-headed one first reaches 0.98?
Answer 10
Posterior after h heads is 2^h/(2^h + 11), from prior odds 1 to 11 multiplied by a likelihood ratio of 2^h. Setting that at or above 0.98 gives 2^h >= 11 x 0.98/(1 - 0.98) = 539, so h = 10. Check: 9 heads gives 0.979, which is short, and 10 heads gives 0.9894. Each head is one doubling of the odds, so the count grows only with the log of the pile.
Distributions you should know cold
Binomial, geometric and uniform means and variances, applied rather than quoted.
Example
Two fair 6-sided dice are rolled out of sight. At least one shows a 6. What is the chance both do?
- 18.2%
- 2.8%
- 16.7%
- 9.1%
- 50%
Answer 9.1%
Outcomes with at least one 6 number 11, and exactly one of those has both, so 1/11 = 9.1%. The intuitive 1/6 answers the different question where a NAMED die shows a 6.
Estimation under uncertainty
A number nobody knows exactly, reasoned to the right order of magnitude out loud.
Example
Whole numbers are picked one at a time, and you get to keep picking. How many do you have to pick to be certain that two of them leave the same remainder when divided by 18?
Answer 19
The remainders are the 18 boxes, 0 through 17. Picking 18 numbers can dodge a repeat exactly once, by hitting every remainder, so 19 forces one. The same statement says two of the picks differ by a multiple of 18, which is how this argument usually turns up.
Waiting times and repeated trials
How long until the first success, and why the answer is rarely the average you expected.
Example
A quote engine throws an average of 1.9 errors an hour, Poisson. What is the chance of an error-free hour, as a percentage?
Answer 15
P(0) = e^−1.9 = e^−1 × e^−0.9 ≈ 0.3679 × 0.41 ≈ 0.1496, so about 15%.
Symmetry arguments
Questions that collapse to one line once you notice the two cases are mirror images.
Example
A fair 10-sided die pays its face value, plus a bonus of 6 if it lands on 10. What is the expected payout?
Answer 6.1
The face averages 5.5 and the bonus adds 6/10 = 0.6, giving 6.1.
What a good score looks like
Use this mock’s score and worked review to identify skills to practise. No Outcry score guarantees a pass or a hiring outcome; a current employer threshold for this practice paper has not been verified.
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.
- 03Sanity-check the magnitude before committing. A probability above one or an expectation outside the range of outcomes is a caught error, and these papers plant both as options.
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 Marshall Wace
Common questions
- Is this Marshall Wace’s official quantitative paper test?
- No. Outcry generates its own questions. Marshall Wace lists an in-person test as its first assessment stage after CV screening. Pearson’s candidate page states 18 questions: +2 correct, −1 incorrect, 0 unanswered. Outcry matches the published question count and scoring. The generated numeric questions, 120-minute practice clock, topic allocation and back navigation are Outcry settings; we do not claim to reproduce the confidential test.
- How long is this quantitative paper practice section?
- 18 questions in 120 minutes in the Outcry mock. These are practice settings unless the source check explicitly confirms them.
- How is the practice marked?
- Correct answers earn 2 marks unless the question states another weight. Wrong answers lose 1; unanswered items lose 0, including timeouts. These rules apply to this mock.
- Where can I check the employer’s process?
- See the public source check on the linked assessment. Your role-specific invitation governs the actual format, permitted tools and scoring.