Casper Prep

[RicardoKaká]

So with the news that uOttawa is now adding CASPer into the admissions criteria, does anyone know any good prep materials (preferably FREE). 

 

I mean like websites that offer free video scenarios or anything like that?

 

I know this is early, but just wondering if any free prep is out there!

 

Any tips on how to prepare for CASPer would be deeply appreciated as well.

[j17f]

I just went through the McMaster threads since 2010 about the CASPer, and found some resources.  From what I read in Casper Reaction thread from 2013  was that most people thought that there was no point in trying to prepare for the test, it's just type based off your instincts.  A few mentioned that they believed the opposite was true, in that preparing for the test gave them an idea of how to answer the questions.  Personally, I'm going to review as much stuff as possible.  I am unsure whether I will spend the money for some practice CASPer tests, although I remember that it was beneficial to have a feeling for how long I took when completing a verbal passage, so maybe the tests would be beneficial in that regard.

Resources:

Doing Right- Philip C. Hébert

http://canadianbioethicscompanion.ca/

http://www.cmaj.ca/site/misc/bioethics_e.xhtml
 

[IMislove]

Essentially, reading some material gives you an idea on how to approach something (Doing Right), or, like the CMAJ articles, give you insight into some commonly faced ethical issues in medicine. Now as this will be my third time, I can tell you that medical ethics, albeit important, are not as important as just real life experience handling ethically challenging situations. So definitely just finding some free questions, just to get an idea on what you might be facing, will help. Doing right is great in terms of it teaches you that no one situation has one option, but how do you find a GOOD one, and how do you support it. With that, good luck, and I'll see you all in CASPer october hell xD. But for real, it's sort of fun just type and think fast!

[Bambi]

http://forums.premed101.com/index.php?/topic/47600-mmi-casper-prep-by-popular-demand-part-i-of-ii/

 

Comments from those invited to Mac Interview, in part based upon the new Casper Questions - which may be compared to a written and faster MMI (computer based questions that must be answered quickly as opposed to autiobiographical answers made over time):

 

 

 

I do recognize that no amount of studying will help you do better on the Casper. There is not enough time for that. It is who you are as a person and your own understanding of ethics that will show through the questions. Also, you need to ask yourself questions like about your successes, your failures, your stresses and what you learned from them.

 

I avoided being flowery or repetitive. I just went straight to the point, and tried to examine opinions from all angles before stating my opinion.

 

 

 

Tips for CASPer...

 

(1) learn to type quickly

(2) think on the fly and go with your gut, justify your choice... there's very little time for flippy flopping

 

 

there's a formula for doing situations like MMI and CASPer...

1) identify the issue. why is it an issue to the person in the case? who else will this issue affect?

2) identify as many perspectives on the matter as you can.

3) pick one and defend it.

4) follow through. identify anticipated future consequences, benefits, disadvantages.

 

....they just want to know your basic ideas about things. i don't think anyone will fault you for making a decision as long as it's based on rational thought and a good explanation of why you said what you did. this applies for casper as well. remember that there really are no right answers. that's why i feel that preparation can only help so much. especially with casper...it is just so random.

 

 

 

CASPer is really a mixed bag.

 

There's also a 3rd type of question that you haven't considered: the random question. It's not hypothetical and it's not based on past experiences. It's more like how you perceive yourself.

 

To answer your initial question, I'd say that there were more past experience questions than hypothetical ones.

 

 

 

In most of my answers, I used examples of things that I had done/was doing to show that I had whatever skill the question was looking for, regardless of whether is was a past experience question or not. However, you don't need tons of experience to answer the questions well. I think I used the same 2 examples for most of my answers. There was a question (or 2, I can't remember the exact number), that asked you to draw on a specific past experience. But I wouldn't worry about not having enough life experience to do well on CASPer.

 

 

 

Theres no way to prepare for caper ideally. The best way to do it is having life experience. You can't fake your way through it really. You need to know how to handle stressful situations, resolve conflicts, utilize team work, problem solving, these sorts of things. You can spend hours studying these concepts, butt he best way i think is to have life experience in handling these situations either in your volunteer, research, EC's, whatever.

 

I used my own personal experiences to answer most questions on CASPer. In the end, I ended up having a lot of fun taking on the challenge of solving the different scenarios we were given. If I could give you two things to do to prepare, it would be to 1) briefly go over bioethics (i.e. read doing right), 2) practice MMI scenarios, because essentially CASPer is just an online MMI.

 

 

 

I agree with this. I just used my life experiences to answer the questions. Although there is no right answer, original ideas are definitely looked upon favorably. I think I got an invite because I provided some out-of-the-box answers for some of the questions. Almost everyone will talk about the ethical dilemmas at hand, and try and examine both sides of the issue, but you only have a minute to answer the question, don't write the exact same thing as the every other applicant.

 

You don't need to prep if you have the ability to think on the spot. I don't even think you can prep for CASPer.