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15s
What does it mean?
Compound interest
How to play
- 1A finance term appears. Pick what it actually means.
- 2Fifteen seconds each — long enough to read four definitions.
- 3A run of correct answers is worth more than the same number scattered.
- 4Twelve terms, then every one you met, explained in plain language.
How this works
What this is actually testing
Twelve finance terms a round, four definitions each, fifteen seconds apiece. IPO, CAGR, NAV, APY, EMI, ISA, 401(k) and the rest of the vocabulary that appears in documents people are expected to sign.
This is the most straightforwardly useful of the five games, because the barrier it removes is purely linguistic. A great deal of financial language is not difficult once it is defined; it is simply unexplained, and the cost of not asking is that people agree to things they have not understood.
Why the wrong options are close
The three incorrect definitions are not random. They are usually the neighbouring concept — the thing the term is most often confused with — because that is the confusion worth clearing up.
APR against APY, nominal against real, gross against net, a yield against a return: each pair sounds interchangeable and means something different, sometimes by a wide margin. Being able to pick the right one out of four similar sentences is a better test of understanding than recalling a phrase.
How the round is scored
A correct answer scores a base amount, and consecutive correct answers add a bonus on top of it, up to a ceiling. Twelve terms make a round.
The fifteen-second limit is sized to read four definitions rather than to hurry you. If you do not know a term, a reasoned guess between the two plausible options is the intended behaviour — eliminating the obviously wrong ones is itself part of the skill.
Every term, afterwards
At the end of a round, every term you met is listed with its definition in plain language, whether you got it right or not. That list is the actual output of the game; the score is only there to make you finish.
Terms you want to keep can be saved with a note of your own, which is more useful than it sounds the second time you meet one in a document.
Questions people ask
Are the terms country-specific?
Some are, and those are regionalised. A 401(k) is American, an ISA is British, an EMI and a PPF account are Indian. The shared terms — compounding, liquidity, diversification, yield — mean the same thing everywhere and appear for everyone.
Fifteen seconds feels short.
It is set to read four definitions and choose, which is about as long as most people take before second-guessing. If you know the term it is ample; if you do not, the extra time would usually go on doubt rather than on reasoning.
Why do I keep seeing terms I already know?
Recently served terms are tracked so a round is not a repeat of the last one, but the bank is finite and familiar terms will recur. They are also not wasted: the distractors change, and a term you know in isolation is not always one you can pick out of four close definitions.
Where do the definitions come from?
They are written in plain language against published and regulatory definitions, with sources listed on the sources page. Where a term has a precise legal meaning that differs from its everyday use, the definition says so, because that gap is usually where the confusion starts.
Method and figures last reviewed . Every worked example here is produced by the same calculation the page runs — enter the same inputs above and the numbers will match.