How I Made a Perfect Score on Casper

Casper is a situational judgment and professionalism exam that tests your social intelligence, ethics, empathy, collaboration, and problem solving. Some medical and PA schools will require you to take the Casper exam (now part of Acuity Insights Assessments) before they will review your application. This assessment is supposed to allow schools to assess your soft skills, which otherwise wouldn’t come across through the primary and secondary applications.

Most schools don’t require these tests, but many recommend or will at least accept your results if you include them along with your letter of interest (and you should look at anything listed as “optional” or “recommended” as being required!). Since some schools require Casper, you might as well take it. Especially if it’s an additional metric that can help you stand out, and it’s one of the less expensive aspects of the application process.

How I Studied for Casper & Scored in the 4th Quartile

Casper is an exam that you can study for, but soft skills are something you should already have to a reasonable degree. Studying too much might actually hinder your performance by making you overthink. The key is finetuning these skills and creating a formula for how you’re going to answer questions on the exam.

Casper consists of both a written and video response section. Your answer to a question can’t really be wrong (unless it’s completely unethical); it’s more so testing your ability to identify the response that’s most correct and to communicate the thought process behind your answer.

To get started, I googled Casper practice questions to familiarize myself with the types of questions and their format. The best resources are those that will give you the passage along with the answer and reasoning behind it. Once I found about three quality websites, I went through the first few scenarios and read the correct answer and the explanation of why it was correct. Once I had a feel for the format and reasoning, I started answering scenario questions on my own and comparing my answer to the correct answer. You’ll quickly start to notice a pattern in the answers that usually looks something like this:

Let’s say the scenario is that someone in your study group isn’t pulling their weight. What would you do? My answer would follow this format:

(1)  Communicate that you would approach the other person with sensitivity (i.e., make it clear that the conversation you’re having with them is out of concern, is being done in private, and that you’re not accusing the other person).

(2)  Demonstrate that you would actively listen to the other person.

(3)  Show empathy when the person opens up. If they don’t open up or you sense that they’re lying, don’t become argumentative (at this point you would escalate your concern to the professor, but do not threaten the other person).

(4)  Offer to be part of the solution (ex. “is there a part of the assignment that I can help you with?”).

This exact format will need to be adjusted depending on the scenario, but I used this basic outline when answering questions. Another way to look at it would be:

(1)  Identify the problem

(2)  Consider multiple perspectives (ex. recognize that you’re probably only hearing one side of the story)

(3)  Actively listen and empathize

(4)  Identify possible solutions

Once you’ve gone through enough practice questions and your answers are mostly correct, start timing yourself to simulate the actual test environment. You’ll have five minutes to answer 3 questions about a scenario for the written portion of the exam, and one minute to record a video response.

The last thing I did to prepare for Casper was take the practice Casper test. I took it about two days before my actual exam.

Things to Note About the Casper Exam

Remember that there really aren’t any wrong answers. As a future doctor/PA, you’re probably already a reasonable, empathetic person who can entertain multiple viewpoints. The situations are supposed to be dilemmas and will rarely have one definitive right answer. Don’t make it harder than it needs to be!

Another thing, if the question asks what you would do in a situation, it’s okay to entertain multiple points of view and possible solutions in your answer, but you need to actually say what you would do by the end. Don’t just keep going back and forth trying to be diplomatic—this will only hurt your score.

You can use these same strategies when studying for the AAMC PREview, the only difference being the format of the exam. If you have any questions or want to discuss your specific situation, feel encouraged to reach out here or on Instagram. Let me know how you did when you get your results back!

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