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CASPer fail


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I agree with the OP. I do type pretty quickly (well over 100 wpm) but I still made sure they knew (exit survey) that the time limit was going to affect the quality of the responses severely for most.

 

The concept is a good one. If they were just reasonable about the time limit, it would have been a very good way to test us this year.

 

My feeling is that too many will complain about CASPER the way it has been presented this year and they'll go back to marking the ABS. Nothing wrong with that, good massive trial run for Mac.

 

Actually, I've always had a feeling that they weren't really intending to use CASPer this year anyway. By withholding that information from us, people would actually take it seriously, which would make it a much more effective "beta test" than their former small-scale one (that wasn't really representative anyway, from the sounds of it).

 

Or maybe that's just wishful thinking on my part. I start in 1.5 hours. Eek, this thread is freaking me out.

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Actually, I've always had a feeling that they weren't really intending to use CASPer this year anyway. By withholding that information from us, people would actually take it seriously, which would make it a much more effective "beta test" than their former small-scale one (that wasn't really representative anyway, from the sounds of it).

 

Or maybe that's just wishful thinking on my part. I start in 1.5 hours. Eek, this thread is freaking me out.

 

It's fine, you'll be fine. I think they did a good job of letting everyone know what to expect.

 

I've been doing MMI practice (started by rchard in the MMI forum) and it's the perfect practice for CASPer!

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OMG guise it is soooo totally unfair

 

I especially hated that question about "What is your favorite fruit and what does it represent in the symbolic medical world?". Then they asked to provide an example where the fruit helped you in a real life situation.

 

I took the test and the video died out on me and the timer was going. You have to turn on your webcam so that they can verify who you are before they restart the test. If your computer doesn't have a webcam, you better get to one fast!

 

Troll.....?

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"What is your favorite fruit and what does it represent in the symbolic medical world?". Then they asked to provide an example where the fruit helped you in a real life situation.

 

My favourite fruit is the apple, and its significance in medicine is demonstrated by the common saying, "an apple a day keeps the doctor away." Apples are full of nutrients, which are essential for good health. Eating apples has probably helped me maintain good health; if not, I enjoy eating apples because they taste good. Also, apples, as with most other fruits and vegetables, assist with relieving constipation.

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My favourite fruit is the apple, and its significance in medicine is demonstrated by the common saying, "an apple a day keeps the doctor away." Apples are full of nutrients, which are essential for good health. Eating apples has probably helped me maintain good health; if not, I enjoy eating apples because they taste good. Also, apples, as with most other fruits and vegetables, assist with relieving constipation.

 

I like bananas, because, um, I want to do urology.

 

kthnx

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Aren't you the ace who tried it and found it simple? If anything, you should let us know!

 

LOL- I didn't try the ctrl-V.

 

Everyone is on a level playing field here. The random typing checks should tell them if someone is ctrl-V-ing. There were questions I only answered with one sentence too, or not fully. That's OK, because everyone is in that situation.

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LOL- I didn't try the ctrl-V.

 

Everyone is on a level playing field here. The random typing checks should tell them if someone is ctrl-V-ing. There were questions I only answered with one sentence too, or not fully. That's OK, because everyone is in that situation.

 

F***. I did use Ctrl+V to move parts of the answers that I'd entered in to some fields to another part of the same section where I thought that information was more appropriate. I hope they don't decide to use that against me with their typing check. This is ridiculous.

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LOL- I didn't try the ctrl-V.

 

Everyone is on a level playing field here. The random typing checks should tell them if someone is ctrl-V-ing. There were questions I only answered with one sentence too, or not fully. That's OK, because everyone is in that situation.

 

Agreed. Question was more so out of curiosity than anything else. I doubt it'd be beneficial for someone to go back and copy+paste things anyway...would take too much time to change and modify.

 

Just go with whatever comes to mind first! That's my plan.

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F***. I did use Ctrl+V to move parts of the answers that I'd entered in to some fields to another part of the same section where I thought that information was more appropriate. I hope they don't decide to use that against me with their typing check. This is ridiculous.

 

Typing checks wouldn't "catch" that. That is legitimate.

 

The benefit of the 5-min time slot is that it can prevent outside help. Even having soeone sitting next to you, helping you, there is no way to incorporate their help and your own thoughts into the question.

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At first, I was a little upset with the timing too but then I thought about it before letting my sentiments get carried away. They aren't looking for complete essays. They want concise and relevant responses. This can be done in 2-3 sentences. I think the timing was a reasonable balance between capturing your assessment capabilities and communication abilities.

 

It was certainly tough because of the nature of the questions, but med school and practice isn't cake. There was one type of question that was really tough considering the time but I'm not going to say what type because that would compromise CASPer.

 

Overall, I thought it was fair. I don't imagine they expect us to write profound essays for each question. It'll be fine. Just like the written component of MCAT.

 

ie for all those yet to take it, don't be downed by the reactions. It's not cake, but it's not hell either. It's realistic. Do your best and good luck.

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You know there are no 'random typing checks'. That would require them to run a timer on each key stroke, and therefore they would have to save your document after each key stroke and match it to a time. Since hitting backspace will not give you your work back, they haven't saved anything. Not to mention that there is no software installation required for the process, that the textboxes aren't based on flash (just objects) and that saving your work every second for thousands of test-takers would probably crash their server.

 

They are also running Joomla, which clearly is not flash-based.

 

All this to say "Ctrl+V" away!

 

Basically confirming they are also lying to us. I was also highly doubting this. How nice of you McMaster! False threats wooot!

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OMG...after one of the video's the f***ing questions wouldn't load! I called the helpdesk, but by the time it was sorted out there was only 20 seconds left and all I could type was that it didn't work. She said not to worry,but asdfghjkl I'm so mad! and then I was all flustered after too! stupid f***ing casper.

 

Sorry to hear that. I'm sure they have methods for taking care of it.

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Do you guys think the whole secret plan was to use casper in the selection process as a front to help validate their new assessment system for the future? and are going to still use the ABS responses from OMSAS for the real deal? but needed to make the situation as realistic as possible? This is just what I am thinking...prior to writing my casper lol.

 

it just seems there are soo many glitches.. which would be expected for a new mass implementation of testing software that is "capser" ..

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Do you guys think the whole secret plan was to use casper in the selection process as a front to help validate their new assessment system for the future? and are going to still use the ABS responses from OMSAS for the real deal? but needed to make the situation as realistic as possible? This is just what I am thinking...prior to writing my casper lol.

 

I really hope not haha...I hated the ABS questions this year...

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Well I just finished CASPer (12:30 time)... I was typing right down to the last 10 seconds... although I did have time to finish all the answers. Most of the answers came naturally to me, and I felt like I could predict what would be asked of me during the video, which allowed me to jot some points DURING the video that I may have to talk about or would like to mention in my answers... I felt like this saved me a lot of time because I could jump right into answering once the video was done.

 

Although I didn't experience any serious technical errors, there was one point where I was done answering and the time got stuck at 0:01 and I had to click submit answers to proceed to the next section.

 

I felt like I did OK on it... You just have to put yourself in that situation. I think what CASPer REALLY tests for is life experience. If you have experience in handling some of the scenarios, that is a huge plus.

 

The biggest time sink for me was thinking of how I would respond or how to answer the question, but once I got an idea of where my answer would lead, everything just flowed naturally.

 

Good luck everyone!

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You know there are no 'random typing checks'. That would require them to run a timer on each key stroke, and therefore they would have to save your document after each key stroke and match it to a time. Since hitting backspace will not give you your work back, they haven't saved anything. Not to mention that there is no software installation required for the process, that the textboxes aren't based on flash (just objects) and that saving your work every second for thousands of test-takers would probably crash their server.

 

They are also running Joomla, which clearly is not flash-based.

 

All this to say "Ctrl+V" away!

 

the tech guy in me still says - they could still be using a form of ajax to track things. Or store things as you type in local javascript variables and pass the results at the page submit. Not saying they are, but they could :)

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