CASPER TEST

juliarobertsxxx

Hey ATARNotes,
I've just done my UCAT and my score isn't really competitive, so the next thing on my list is the CASPer test because Curtin Uni gives it a higher weighting than the UCAT.

Has anyone done the CASPer test? If you have, I have a few questions:

How much preparation, and what kind of preparation, should I do for this test?
Do we have to appear in the video answer, or is there an option to use text?
What was its level of difficulty for you, personally?
How is it marked and could you please share your results and where that got you?

Thank you 🙂

Billzene

I did the CASPER but it's for admission to a teaching course. I got 50-75th percentile (they only gave you quartiles) and it was pretty easy. I'll answer your questions but keep in mind I don't know if the version of CASPER for med is similar to the teaching one.

Virtually no prep at all, just the official practice test the night before
Yeah you had to, you can't use text to respond to the video section. However, some unis choose to exclude your video score from the overall CASPER score. They won't announce which ones don't consider your video response section because they don't want people to skip it
Very easy, I have Asperger's Syndrome (diagnosed since I was 11) but still managed to do well with minimal prep. 50th-75th percentile was good enough for education admissions because that's the only course I'm interested in, but I'm not sure about med. The whole test is very pushed for time because you're given only 5 minutes (+30 sec thinking time) to think of and type up your response to 3 very open-ended questions. I have quick typing speed (80+ WPM) so that may have given me a slight advantage. The video section was pretty hard because you now only have 1 minute to respond to each question and the thinking time provided (30 sec) is nowhere near enough, I was saying "um" and "ah" all the time
They have a different person marking each different question and they don't tell you how well you did in individual questions. All they give you is the quartile and explain what percentiles that corresponds to

juliarobertsxxx

Thank you so much!! From what I gather, it can't be repeated twice in an admissions cycle? ie. twice a year?

Billzene

juliarobertsxxx You can’t resit in the same year unless it’s for a different program type ie you can sit both teaching and med CASPERs in the same cycle

calebark

I did the CASPER this year and got 75-100% percentile. For practise I did three of the practise tests the week beforehand — honestly I think just doing one to familiarise yourself with the structure is fine, I don't think the extra was any more helpful.

I personally found a lot of the practise questions didn't give me all of the information to make a judgement, so my typical answer to a situational question involved discussing what information I would seek next, and then what my judgement or next steps would be based on two different hypothetical answers to the information I needed. A lot of the time I decided that an issue was out of my hands and basically handballed it to an appropriate authority.

You can see yourself on the video when you speak, so if you're not used to that I'd recommend getting a bit of practise just for stage fright — even if it just means doing a bit of practise with your webcam on in an empty Zoom room.

Best of luck.

juliarobertsxxx

calebark Thank you so much!! I'm probably going to take it in September.