Casper is an open response situational judgement test that attempts to learn more about your professionalism,
character traits and social intelligence. Good professionals not only have to understand their craft but must also know
how to work effectively with other people.
The Casper test has been changing every year and it can change again for the 2023-2024 cycle as the parent company of
the casper test is changing from takealtus to acuity insights.
You can only take the casper test once per year for a particular application. If you are applying to different types of
programs such as medical and dental school or you are applying to the same program in different countries you will have
to write the test multiple times.
In this test you will be challenged with 15 scenarios mimicking real life situations that can occur in personal and
team settings and you will be asked questions about how you will react in these scenarios. These scenarios will be shown
to you in both word based and video based formats and you will either type your responses or record yourself. The test
can be broken down into 2 sections based on the type of response. The first section is the typed response section
consisting of the first 9 scenarios. The second section is the video response section consisting of the last 6
scenarios.
Out of the 9 typed response scenarios you will be presented with 6 video based scenarios and 3 word based scenarios in
randomised order. Out of the 6 video response scenarios you will be presented with 4 video based scenarios and 2 word
based scenarios in randomised order. After seeing each scenario you will have 30 seconds of reflection time. Then you
will be responding to 3 questions regarding that scenario.
In the first section or word based responses you are given 5 minutes to answer three questions regarding that
scenario. In the second section or video based responses You will only have 1 minute to record your response for each
question. In the video response section you can only see each question one at a time unlike the word based responses
where you see all three questions at the same time. Recording automatically starts 10s after the page loads giving you
some time to read the question. After your time is up, your answers are automatically submitted.
You will have an optional 5 minute break after the 5th word based response and an optional 10 minute break after the
9th word based response scenario. Take this time to relax your mind for the next sections. On test day you can have a
pen or pencil with a piece of paper with you so use it wisely.
Casper assesses specifically the 10 following character traits: collaboration, communication, empathy, equity, ethics,
motivation, problem solving, professionalism, resilience, self awareness. So each question is assessing at least one of
these criteria. so be mindful of how you structure your responses when you notice one of these criteria being assessed.
Each scenario is graded by a new rater, so don't worry if you answer one question not the way you wanted. pause, take a
deep breath and move on. You will receive a score based on how you performed compared to other test takers. You won’t
receive an exact score but you will know if you scored in the first, second, third or fourth quartile with 4th quartile
being the best.
Do the practice test offered on the official casper website to see exactly what you will expect on test day and to
ensure that your microphone, webcam are working and you have the appropriate internet speed. Make sure no one is using
the internet while you use the test so that you don’t experience any issues. Casper is becoming an important criteria
for many schools every year and preparation for this test is crucial for success in your applications. Turning your
character traits which are qualitative assessments into quantitative numbers does have its downfalls. There are many
students who are compassionate and empathetic but fail to demonstrate that in their responses.
You can only take this test once per year. So prepare wisely. There are many things you can do to prepare. It is
crucial that you increase your typing speed and become confident speaking into a camera. Your ability to appear genuine
and empathetic in your typed responses and video responses is what separates good scorers from bad scorers. Be open
minded to all perspectives, think of multiple definitive solutions, and show that you can empathise with the parties
involved. You should have a plan on how you approach different types of questions so that on test day you can have less
stress and have confidence in your answers.
You should also expose yourself to all the different unique situations that you have not encountered before. This
will enable you to think on your feet and answer each question on the casper test with ease. There are many free casper
practice scenarios all over the internet which you can use to prepare. You can also visit Gkneeus.com which is developed
and run by 4th quartile scorers for 30 free unique casper scenarios.