The Complete Casper Test Guide

What is the Casper test?

Casper is an online situational judgement test. Admissions and selection teams use it to see the human side of an applicant: empathy, ethics, communication and judgement under pressure. It's built and delivered by Acuity Insights, and it's one of the most widely used non-academic screens for people-centred professions.

Here is the part that surprises most people: Casper does not test what you know. It measures social intelligence and professionalism, not academic or clinical knowledge, so there is no subject matter to revise. Instead you are shown short, everyday dilemmas, a colleague behaving unfairly, a friend in distress, an awkward decision with no clean answer, and asked what you would do and why. The scenarios are deliberately not specific to your field, and your responses are open-ended, in your own words, typed or recorded on camera.

Who needs to take the Casper test?

If you are applying to a programme that cares about how you work with people, there is a good chance Casper is on your checklist. It is required or accepted by programs across many fields and many countries, usually as one part of a wider application. Use our Casper by profession guide to jump straight to your field.

• Medicine (Casper for medical school): MD and DO programs in the US, and medicine in Canada, Australia and New Zealand
• General practice training in Australia, through the RACGP National Entry Assessment. Plenty of Australian university courses use it too, so see our guide to the Casper test in Australia
• Nursing in the US (Casper for nursing school) and in Canada (the Casper test for nursing in Canada), plus midwifery
• Physician assistant (PA) (Casper for PA school) and associate programs
• Pharmacy (Casper for pharmacy), dentistry (Casper for dental school) and dental hygiene
• Veterinary medicine (Casper for vet school) and veterinary technology
• Allied health (physiotherapy and occupational therapy), plus speech pathology, audiology and social work
• Psychology and counselling
• Teacher education (Casper for teaching in Australia)

When you register, your Casper results are sent to the programs you select. Many Casper-requiring programs also recruit through centralised application services such as AMCAS, AACOMAS, CASPA, OMSAS, CaRMS, PharmCAS, AADSAS and VMCAS, so you may meet Casper as part of one of those cycles. The exact requirement changes every year, so always confirm the current rule on your specific program page before you book.

The Casper test format

The standard Casper test has two sections and takes about 65 to 85 minutes, including optional breaks. There are 11 scenarios and 22 questions in total, split between a video-response section and a typed-response section. For a section-by-section breakdown, see how long the Casper test takes.

• Video section first. You watch or read a scenario, then record your answer to each question on webcam. You get 1 minute per answer.
• Typed section second. You read a scenario, then type answers to both questions. You get 3 minutes 30 seconds for the pair.
• Breaks. There are optional breaks between parts of the test.

Because the typed clock is tight, typing speed matters. At 40 words a minute, you can fit about 130 words across both answers. At 80, it's about 260. Check yours with our free Casper typing test.

What Casper measures: the 9 competencies

Casper looks for a set of social and professional qualities, and the nine below cover them. Raters don't tick these off one by one. They score each answer on its overall quality: your thinking, judgement and communication. Still, the nine give you a clear picture of what a strong answer shows.

• Collaboration, working with others rather than acting alone
• Communication, expressing yourself clearly and warmly
• Empathy, genuinely understanding how another person feels
• Fairness, treating people equitably and weighing different perspectives
• Ethics, reasoning honestly through dilemmas with no clean answer
• Motivation, showing real care for people and the work
• Problem-solving, gathering information and choosing a sensible course of action
• Resilience, staying steady and seeking support under pressure
• Self-awareness, knowing your limits, biases and impact on others

The single biggest differentiator is empathy. Weak answers state it ("I would be empathetic"); strong answers show it through specific, human language. Our breakdown of the 9 competencies explains exactly what raters look for in each, with examples.

How the Casper test is scored

Casper scoring is unusual, and understanding it changes how you prepare. Trained raters score your answers, and different raters score different scenarios. So no one person scores your whole test, and no single harsh or generous marker decides your result.

• Your result is relative. It compares you with other applicants who took the same test type. You see it as a quartile, from 1st (lowest) to 4th (highest).
• There's no pass or fail. You don't get a numeric mark, only your quartile, and there's no fixed cut-off. Each program decides how to use your result.
• Knowledge is never scored. Raters judge your judgement and communication, not facts.
• Results take a few weeks. Acuity sends your Casper test results to the programs you've chosen about 2 to 3 weeks after your test. Your quartile score is available about 4 to 5 weeks after the test.

Our guide to Casper scores and quartiles goes deeper, including what programs see and what you see. On Caspermate, every practice answer gets a Q1 to Q4 score and feedback on what was weak, so you know what to fix. For side-by-side examples, see our Q4 vs Q2 answer comparison.

How to prepare for the Casper test

You can't memorise your way to a good Casper result. What helps is practice with honest feedback on what was weak. Here's a preparation plan that works for any profession.

1. Learn the format cold. Nothing should be a surprise on the day, not the timer, not the recording window, not the two-question structure.
2. Build empathy-first habits. Before you solve anything, acknowledge the human. Make it instinct, not an afterthought.
3. Rehearse the typed clock. Practise answering two questions in 3.5 minutes until it feels normal, and lift your typing speed if it's holding you back.
4. Practise speaking to camera. The video section trips up people who never rehearse out loud. Record yourself and watch it back.
5. Do full, timed mock tests. A handful of realistic, end-to-end runs with honest feedback on every answer will move you further than weeks of reading.

Our guide to how much to write in a Casper typed response shows how to fit a full answer into the typed clock. Our free sample scenarios show answers at every quartile, with no signup. When you want feedback on your own answers, start free.

How much does the Casper test cost?

The Casper test costs US$85 for US medicine and C$50 plus C$20 per program in Canada (checked 13 Sep 2026). In Australia, the RACGP National Entry Assessment costs A$190. Other test types and countries have their own prices.

In Canada, every program you send results to adds the per-program fee. If you're approved for a US or UK fee assistance program, such as AAMC's, your Casper test may be free. That includes sending your results to all the programs you select. For sitting dates and registration, see Casper test dates for the US and Canada.

A week-by-week Casper prep plan

Here's a four-week plan. Squeeze it into two weeks if your test is close, or stretch it if you have longer. Each week has one focus, so you always know what to work on.

Short on time? Fold the first two weeks together and spend the rest on timed practice. Want to compare prep options first? Our Casper prep platforms compared guide sets them side by side.

Common mistakes to avoid

• Treating it like a knowledge exam. There are no facts to recall. Reciting policies instead of engaging with people reads as cold.
• Naming a virtue instead of showing it. "I would be empathetic and ethical" earns nothing. Demonstrate it in your wording.
• Jumping straight to a solution. Acknowledge feelings and gather information before you act.
• Running out of time. Untrained typing speed and unrehearsed video answers cost real marks. Practise against the clock.
• Sounding rehearsed. Templates make you sound robotic. Practise the habits, then respond naturally to each scenario.