Credit Suisse Quantitative Exam

[Amaan]

I have been invited to write a written quantitative exam for Credit Suisse openings.
It seems it's a preliminary process devised by recruiters to filter candidates before inviting them to the real interview and it also seems they have been doing this for the past couple of years.

Could anyone please help me with the format of the exam ? e.g., will there be programming questions? What areas are best worth studying in the remaining two weeks?

I am a final year PhD student in Statistics with a decent knowledge of prob. and stat., calculus, and numerical methods. I have coded in C and R (not C++ though).

Thanks in advance for your help.

 

[euroazn]

Btw, I think you mean take the exam ;-)
If you wrote the exam, then you'd be the one creating it xD

 

[Andy Nguyen]

The expression is something I notice of people from India so it takes some time getting used to what they mean. Every culture has each own expression of a phrase in English.

The CS Quant Exam is a standard book/pen exam where it has several section (math/programming/finance) and each section has several questions.
What is the price of this option, what is the output of this pseudo code, complete this differential equation, etc

So it's a bit of Hull, coding algorithm, calculus math. It's multiple choice if I remember correctly.

So how do you prepare? Michael Page has a few good guides on what section to prepare and interview books are helpful
Master reading list for quants, MFE students | Quant Network

 

[Amaan]

I wish I was writing the exam then!

Andy! thanks for the hints..

 

[koupparis]

Btw, I think you mean take the exam ;-)
If you wrote the exam, then you'd be the one creating it xD

It is a direct translation of what we say in Greek too. Take usually means to possess physically in Greek, so we don't take exams, we sit down and "write exams", i.e. fill them out And after the exam, we ask each other "Did you write?", as in "Did you fill everything out (do well)?"

 

[euroazn]

In russian, how did you do on the exam is translated as "how did you write the exam," so I understand (I am Russian). I just wanted to clarify for any future responder.

 

[Andy Nguyen]

Interesting info.
I went back to the master "Evaluation my profile" thread and did a search for "write", and I found many instances where members use "I plan to write GRE/FRM/etc next month". So it explains it.

Another interesting observation is that many Indian members use the word "pass out" to mean "graduate from". Is that a direct translation in India as well?

In the US, people would think you are into some binge drinking if you use "pass out" a lot.

 

[euroazn]

In the US, people would think you are into some binge drinking if you use "pass out" a lot.

lol

It just goes to show that the verbal section doesn't matter

 

[achilles]

Interesting info.


Another interesting observation is that many Indian members use the word "pass out" to mean "graduate from". Is that a direct translation in India as well?

In the US, people would think you are into some binge drinking if you use "pass out" a lot.

As a matter of fact, I too came upon this mistake a while ago and did a google search to check if it really was a wrong expression that we (Indians) tend to use so frequently. And I found on Wiki, that it really had become a formal phrase in indian english :D

From wiki :
"pass out" is meant to graduate, as in "I passed out of the university in 1995".

So, u r gonna see a lot of it :P