Akuna Capital Math Test? (And Interview Process)

I've applied for a junior trader position with this firm, and so they've sent me an email with directions to take an online mental math test.

Does anybody know what the Akuna test is like, specifically? Can't seem to find too much information about it online. All I know is that there is a 22 minute time limit, and I've got 2 weeks to take it.

Thanks in advance.


To begin preparing for your interview, JobTestPrep has everything you need to know for Mathematical Reasoning Test interviews, including a myriad of questions with thoroughly explained answers.


 

I'have taken it. First park is simple mental math with no fractions. The second part is sequences of letter and numbers. I breezed through the math test and decided I didn't need to prepare for sequences. God I was wrong.

 

Thanks a lot. This is what I've heard as well, so I'm doing a lot of sequence prep right now on TraderTest. So you didn't find the mental math too terrible? It sounds so far like it's easier than the Optiver test, which I've taken (and didn't pass).

"When you stop striving for perfection, you might as well be dead."
 

It's unlimited number of questions under 5 or so minutes, if memory serves me right (exact time is mentioned in the email). Math part was easy. I have an Optiver test to do too. But I they did not mention the deadline for submission. I have an exam this week so I am wondering if they will wait one week. Their recruiters didn't reply to my email so far..

 

Just took it, finally. Had to have the place empty and make sure I had enough prep.

Honestly, if you can do the "easy" level test fairly well on TraderTest and the Medium or Hard sequence test, you're set. It's literally almost exactly like that. There's occasionally harder problems, but you could ignore them and still do very well.

Math is almost all decimal, there's weird stuff like (48/75)/(12/75) but of course in that case you can just treat them as 48/12, which is 4 in this case. I got two of those. The rest were not bad...just make sure you can handle decimals.

The sequences were mostly the same as the TraderTest Hard level, as I said...but there were a couple that I had never seen before and were a struggle. I'd say, just do some searching on the internet and look for as many different kinds of sequences as you can.

Overall, not too bad...not sure how well I did, I answered 41 math questions I think, but probably missed one or two. Answered (I think) 20 sequences questions, probably missed a couple. Not sure if that's enough to pass, but we'll see.

"When you stop striving for perfection, you might as well be dead."
 

So, quick update, my scores were sufficient to move to the next level, and so next up is a personality assessment, also online. Should be interesting to see what that is. I'm guessing it's similar to most that you might take.

"When you stop striving for perfection, you might as well be dead."
 

Just to keep everyone updated on this thread, did not end up making the cut. Took the personality test, which I felt I did very well on, and there are actually some logic and sequencing questions at the end, which I nailed. I have a feeling I didn't get picked for the next round because of my school, major, or GPA..or some combo of those three.

The personality test is similar to one you might take for a Meyers-Briggs personality indicator...not really anything you can do to prep. It's not timed either. 185 questions in total if I remember. Doesn't really take you too long if you're not screwing around.

"When you stop striving for perfection, you might as well be dead."
 
PeteMullersKeyboard:

Yeah I saw that email too, definitely was a long list of ivy league students there. I'm sure that weighed into the decision heavily.

I wonder if Optiver does the same thing. That kind of sucks though. I would of think that they would pick you for initial round based on your school and so forth and if you tie with someone their school or GPA is the tie-breaker.

 

I would have thought so as well, I mean I don't know what else it could've been, and I honestly figured I did pretty well in all the tests up to that point. I've tried speaking with someone in HR there, strangely they sent me an email just the other day (many weeks after initially rejecting me) letting me know they had hired who they were going to hire for the position and decided not to choose me...no kidding, I knew that already.

She said the typical things about self-study and how they "look for the trader mindset, which is something you can't put on a resume, they just have to see it in you"...not much help if you do self study but still didn't get an interview. I don't know. It's hard to say, I'm fairly certain it came down to the school/major/GPA thing. Can't be too mad about it, that's how the world works. It sucks, but there's not much you can do about it at this point in time.

"When you stop striving for perfection, you might as well be dead."
 

I am on the same part as you. I will be doing the webcam interview today, hopefully I pass that part, as I want to see what kind of technical, and behavioral questions are asked on the phone interview and the final interviews, if I even manage to make it there. Probably won't since I am not from a target school.

 

To bring this topic up to date, I think there is a fair possibility that the math test has changed a bit. I had to do a lot of dividing four digit numbers with two digits, e.g. 3264/48. Sequence test was pretty much the same as elite trader hard test as mentioned by others.

Does anyone have a clue what will be asked in the webcam/phone interviews? Mostly fit or heavy on brain teasers and technicals?

 

from my vague memory...probably something like the following:

  1. what does it take to be a good trader?
  2. (cant remember..something related to how you perform under pressure perhaps?)
  3. list of math problems to solve (more complicated math...maybe like 1/2 * 5/2 + 7/3)
  4. easier math problems (on the screen, you just read out your answer basically)
  5. 1 probability question (maybe like whats a better bet, heads $5, tails -2$, or rolling a die and you get x.5 the value of the die. Now what would you need the pay out of them to be if they were to be equal in expected value)
 

Webcam: Mental math - 2 digit multiplication, etc. Behavioral - I think it was talk about some extracurricular or something. One easy expected value coin problem.

Next round phone interview: Mental math Combinatorics question Expected value question Square root of a large number Options basics

 

my scores for 1st interview for those who wants a benchmark. got 80 math questions. didnt' skip any. (7 mins) sequence: i thought it was to see who gets the most, skipped a lot, basically only did the ones where i can find a pattern in the difference between x and x+1. apparently there is a 30 question limit, i reached that with 5 mins to spare. probably got sub 10 correct. won't be surprised if it's closer to 5.

Didn't think i made it past that , but doing video interview today!

 

Does anyone know what personality types they're looking for in the personality test? I want to be honest, but these tests can be so subjective and you don't really know what they're looking for.

 

For personality, I would typically say that traders need to be 'TJ's, and most typically INTJ.

This is actually my first post, but check out a site called '16personalities' (google it) - it's a useful and very accurate test that'll give you some pretty precise recommendations about your strengths and weaknesses.

Prop-Trading recruitment can be a disappointing to a lot of high achieving students as a lot of the time the decision between a hire or not is personality - and personality isn't something you can really fake out. If you're disappointed that you don't fit a certain personality type and don't make it into any good firms I would be of the view that further down the track when you're in some other career you might actually be greatful for not getting into certain gigs.

I would say mental sharpness is something that you can definitely prepare for, but prep will be much easier if you've done things before that are conducive to it, i.e. speed chess, poker, complex video games, competitive sport etc. Though tradertest is good, if you have a lot of time try and play 'Zetamac' a few times every day. I would say an appropriate score is somewhere between the 40-50 range, anything above that is a bonus and likely won't yield you much marginal benefit in day to day trading.

 

just took a math/sequence test from Akuna today. it was 7 mins for math and 15 mins for sequence tests allotted. was reading the above comments. was surprised to see some people solve 40 to 80 math questions in 7 minutes. super awesome!! that is like solving 5 to 11 in a minute. Terrific. as per my potential my plan was to solve 3 questions in a minute if easy and 2 questions if they are hard. i managed between 20 to 30 questions in 7 minutes, dedicating 2-3 questions to solve in a minute. My bad. i got to improve. Regarding sequence I managed 10 problems in 15 minutes. I won't make it through probably. Too Slow :-(

 

I only got through about 30 of the arithmetic questions (and 30 of the sequences) so assumed I did not pass, yet I was still moved on to the personality questionnaire, and then the hirevue interview, which will be available next week. Not sure how they calculate the math scores in terms of moving people onwards - there might be a higher weight on sequences since trading is a lot of pattern recognition.

 

I haven't made it to the final round yet, but I do have a phone interview scheduled. If anyone else has already taken the phone interview and wants to talk about that a little, it would be super helpful to me. Currently I am focusing on studying probability games, option theory and Fermi problems, though I'm not at all sure that these are the best things to focus on.

 

lol you're not expected to know anything about option theory for any stage of their process. so don't waste your time on that.

source: went through entire interview process

 

Just putting in my 2c for the akuna math section. I'm fairly good at mental math, sequences not so much. I used zetamac on the default settings for the 5min and 10 min intervals, taking each 3 times. On the 5 minute I got 38, 48, and 44. On the 10 min I got 89, 108, and 97.

I don't think that in any way prepped me for the Akuna math test. First, the intervals for the akuna math test are more triple x double digit calculations. Secondly, the test comprises of fractions and decimals which definitely hamper your time. I've never used TraderTest, but it's long-gone and the site is disabled so we need something better than zetamac to help with prepping for these trading tests.

 

Gonna have to break it to you, but I highly doubt you are good at mental math if you are only scoring ~45 for 5 minutes and ~100 on the 10 minute test. Next time try to aim for 50-60+ in the 2 minute section.

 

@Jabo123 They won't but will figure it out after technical interviews, so you might as well not waste your and their time.

I took the test, thought I failed, because I did not prepare for 3x3 digits, but still passed. I still think zetamac was fairly helpful - not all firms have as difficult a mental math as Akuna.

 

Does anyone know if you automatically move on to the personality test after the math test or if they cut people after the math test? Cause online it says the first round is assessments (as in both math and personality) and then the Hirevue interview.

I moved on to the personality test, but I'm just wondering if my math score is something I'd still have to worry about or whether I passed and that's why I moved on?

 

Took the test recently; probably around 50-60 on mental math and about 19-22 on the sequences test. The sequences test is not easy, will update you guys

 

Does the phone interview round for akuna have mental math on it or is it just probability. i.e. will I be asked to do "65 x 47" but in words instead of reading it on the screen?

 

I got an interview like 2 days later, took personality saturday got webcam invite monday. Prepping for it now, worried about mental math mostly.. I found the sequences to be pretty easy in the opening one, but the mental math was tough, especially when there are negative numbers, decimals, and division. anyone know any tricks for division, like 684 / 9 or something? how to do this fast?

 

I'm also a sophomore and I have a final round web interview scheduled as well. So you went through all 5 rounds of the interview process and they told you they are not hiring any sophomores as junior traders interns this year?

 

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