How to Improve Your Casper Test Score
The Computer-Based Assessment for Sampling Personal Characteristics (Casper) test is a virtual exam required by many professional schools for admission. This includes programs such as optometry, dentistry, physician’s assistant, physiotherapy, and medical schools. The Casper test score is weighted differently depending on the program, but it is often a significant part of one’s professional school application.
The exam consists of 2 parts: the first part includes 6 scenarios and requires recorded video responses, while the second part includes 8 scenarios and requires typed text responses. There are 14 scenarios in total (presented as a text passage or a 1-2 minute video), and each scenario involves 3 corresponding questions. The exam takes about 90-110 minutes to complete. In terms of evaluation, each of the 8 scenarios in the second section (requiring typed responses) is marked by a different person. The evaluators will assign each scenario (all 3 questions) an overall mark out of 9, with 1 being poor and 9 being satisfactory. A month after your test, you will receive a quartile score that compares your performance to other test-takers on the same day and time. For more information on the exam structure, information on the exam day itself, and how the Casper test is scored, check out our articles on What to Expect on Casper Test Day? and How Is the Casper Test Scored.
Once you have taken the Casper test, it cannot be retaken. The test is only valid for the current admission cycle, and only for the test type and test language that you took the test in. This means the only time you would retake it is if you do not receive any admission offers and are applying again in the next application cycle, or you are taking the exam for a different program or in a different language. For example, Canadian applicants may need to take both the French and English versions of the Casper test, depending on the programs they apply to. Also, the test cannot be re-evaluated once the quartile score comes out. Since each scenario is marked by a different person, the quartile score is supposed to be a balanced and unbiased value that should not need to be re-evaluated.
With any exam, our hope is to excel. However, sometimes things do not go as planned and you can end up with a score that you were not expecting. As mentioned in another article, there are things you can do when you receive a poor Casper score. If you end up having to retake the Casper test in another application cycle, or if you still have some time before your next Casper test for a different program, there are ways to improve your score as well. In this article, we will discuss 6 ways to improve your Casper test score.
1. Reflect
The best way to improve is to figure out what you did wrong. The quartile score that is provided gives you an idea of how you performed relative to other test-takers on the same day and time, but you do not get any specific feedback on your actual answers. If you remember any of the test questions, you could type out the general prompts and gist of your responses, and ask a friend to peer review your answers. Besides that, you can also reflect back on your exam. Remember that on top of what you say in your responses, it’s also a matter of how you say it. Even if two applicants took the same action, they may not necessarily end up with the same score depending on how they approached the situation, how much they touched on other perspectives involved in the scenario, and how they articulated their thoughts. A lot of the questions in the Casper test do not have a right or wrong answer, but evaluators like to see your thought process when making a decision. Perhaps you were rushed on time during your exam and failed to clearly outline your thought process. This may have left out important points that the evaluators would have liked to see. Even more, evaluators like to see that you have carefully considered all of the different perspectives involved in a situation, without making any assumptions, before coming to a conclusion. It is important to remain non-judgemental and non-accusatory, especially when you are not given enough information in the question prompts. Again, this could have been lacking from your response due to the time constraint, resulting in a lower quartile score.
2. Practice Questions
After you have reflected back on your exam and have a general idea of how to improve, you can work on those skills with practice questions. Some people say that there is no formula to acing the Casper test, but extra practice never hurts. If anything, the practice will come in handy when you are in a stressful, time-constrained exam. There are many practice questions available online, as well as a question bank available on our website. With all of the different question banks, practice and get as much feedback as possible – whether it be having a friend or mentor peer review your responses, or even just discussing the answers with friends that are also applying in the same cycle as you. Be sure to practice using different strategies when approaching different question types – for more information, read our article on Casper test strategies. With more practice, you will get used to seeing different question prompts and the critical thinking will start to get easier. Another good way to practice is timing yourself when answering the practice questions. This will give you a simulation of the real time constraint and force you to practice budgeting your time between the 3 different questions for each scenario, while building up your endurance for the real exam.
3. Make a Study Schedule
Once you have practice questions ready to go, it would be a good idea to make a study plan. You can either do this by using the one offered by CasperBooster or make one from scratch. This study schedule can include time to review different question prompts and the corresponding strategies to answer those prompts, reading up on current events and social issues, and doing practice questions. For the current events, be sure to look into topics such as systemic racism, accessibility and diversity, and wealth disparity. Your study plan can vary, but it could start off with 3 or 4 practice scenarios per day, then ramping up to 8 to 10 practice scenarios, before running through multiple timed, full simulations of all 14 scenarios in the last week before your exam. Having the plan will keep you on track and give you an idea of how prepared you are to take on the full exam.
4. Prepare Personal Stories
In your free time, you can also review your CV and resume to reflect on learning experiences that you have had in your extracurricular activities. Some of the questions in the Casper test will ask you to describe experiences you have had and what you learned or gained from them, so it would be a good idea to have stories ready, especially when you are in a time crunch. At the same time, remember that each scenario is marked by a different evaluator. This means you can just brainstorm a few stories and reuse them as you see fit instead of trying to think of 14 unique experiences.
5. Improve Typing Speed
Even if you have the most thorough thought process that incorporates all the different parties involved, or the best solution to the posed question, the evaluators will not be able to see any of it if you cannot type those thoughts down in the given time. The 8 scenarios in the second section each consist of 3 questions requiring typed text responses, and you only get 5 minutes to answer all 3 questions. Therefore, you want to be able to type fast enough to get your thoughts down accurately while clearly conveying your points. To improve your typing speed, work on increasing your rate of “words per minute” with typing-speed practice tests found online or timing yourself when you do practice questions.
6. Prepare for Exam Day
Lastly, a good way to improve your Casper score is to prepare for the test day itself. This includes familiarizing yourself with the format of the exam, as well as the testing platform. You can do so by completing the full practice test on the Casper Test website, and taking it as many times as you need to so that you feel comfortable with both the presentation of the various scenarios and the testing platform itself. This is especially helpful for the first part of the exam that requires video-recorded response, as you do not want to be figuring out the recording process on the day of your exam. At the same time, you can also prepare by ensuring that you have a quiet place to take the test, getting a good night’s sleep before the exam day, and checking that your computer meets the technical requirements – this includes making sure your computer has a webcam and a microphone, an updated system, and a high-speed internet connection.
Conclusion
The Casper test is a challenging exam with a tight time constraint, and it is okay if you need to retake it. However, if you are retaking it, make sure that you have taken the steps to improve from your last attempt and better prepare for the exam. Hopefully these 6 tips are helpful if you are retaking the Casper test. Good luck!
