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Life Examples For Casper


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I noticed while doing CASPer sim questions that many seem to involve personal situations you need to generate, and I'm wondering if it might be possible to brainstorm on potential examples that might apply in advance. I find in doing timed practice questions that coming up with specific examples from my own life holds me up the most, as it is not always easy to recall something that fits well with what they are asking. Reflecting on themes that are common and relating them to your own life in advance might be helpful.

 

Does anyone have any ideas to contribute to a list of potential examples you might be asked for? 

 

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I think it should be good to brainstorm moments where life got tough for you and how you overcame it. So picture any negative emotion you can have : stress, anger, fear, conflict and like picture an example for those situations and how you reacted.  Kind of like in an interview right? Where they ask you about moments in your past employments where you had a conflict with someone,etc. I had written down in advance all moments in my life that were pertinent and that I could develop on and " learn a lesson" from before I wrote my Casper. Then, when the time came, it was super helpful cause recalling a GOOD example takes TIME. And what's the one thing we don't have with Casper? TIME!

 

Hope this helps.

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Keep in mind the casper raters don't know anything about you, so you can just make stuff up. This is a two way street however, because while you can come up with some make believe conflict that answers the question well without it actually happening, you don't get any extra points for it happening in some prestigious extracurricular, because they know you could just be making it up.

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Thanks for the responses guys! 

 

I ended getting up getting hung up on this a bit anyways. There were a couple of scenarios they asked for that didn't come readily to mind. Making something up doesn't sit well with me, so I just came up with whatever I could, even if it wasn't a great example.

 

If I end up writing CASPer again I think I will justl do lots more practice tests to get more familiar/comfortable with generating this stuff.

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  • 6 months later...

Keep in mind the casper raters don't know anything about you, so you can just make stuff up. This is a two way street however, because while you can come up with some make believe conflict that answers the question well without it actually happening, you don't get any extra points for it happening in some prestigious extracurricular, because they know you could just be making it up.

...probably best not to start your life as a professional doctor,...one of the most ethically sound professions out there by lying ..I think pre meds like you forget this too often...you are not applying to medicine for the sake of it or some bizarre game! say it out loud.. MEDICINE...DOCTOR - this is what you are aiming for. Dont lie your way in so you can tell people you got in ...thats messed up and a lot of people like you are applying and getting in. Sick. You are applying to become a doctor!! I cant say this enough. Everything about the profession is based on truth and caring and honesty and maturity. Combining inate medical and scientific knowledge to better peopled lives, what an amazing position to be . You sir are displaying zero traits of a professional, let alone a medical professional. 

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Thanks for the responses guys! 

 

I ended getting up getting hung up on this a bit anyways. There were a couple of scenarios they asked for that didn't come readily to mind. Making something up doesn't sit well with me, so I just came up with whatever I could, even if it wasn't a great example.

 

If I end up writing CASPer again I think I will justl do lots more practice tests to get more familiar/comfortable with generating this stuff.

good for you! That comment about making something up from user above really rubbed me the wrong way

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good for you! That comment about making something up from user above really rubbed me the wrong way

Yeh if you don't have a strong ethical base then you need to be looking at whether this career is the one for you. Lots of jobs in the financial sectors that might better suit ... or law perhaps ... lol

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...probably best not to start your life as a professional doctor,...one of the most ethically sound professions out there by lying ..I think pre meds like you forget this too often...you are not applying to medicine for the sake of it or some bizarre game! say it out loud.. MEDICINE...DOCTOR - this is what you are aiming for. Dont lie your way in so you can tell people you got in ...thats messed up and a lot of people like you are applying and getting in. Sick. You are applying to become a doctor!! I cant say this enough. Everything about the profession is based on truth and caring and honesty and maturity. Combining inate medical and scientific knowledge to better peopled lives, what an amazing position to be . You sir are displaying zero traits of a professional, let alone a medical professional.

 

lol

 

...

 

This has nothing to do with ethics. I wouldn't lie on an application. Casper doesn't ask you to be factual with your examples, nor does it expect you to.

 

I'm a third year med student at Mac, just about to graduate and starting residency in the summer. I've taken casper for both med school and for residency application (some programs require it now). I also marked casper for two years in a row. I am extremely familiar with it.

 

The point of the exam as developed by McMaster and is to evaluate reasoning, not personal circumstances. The question asking you to describe a conflict is only marked on how you describe it, not what the circumstances are, because markers have no way to verify.

 

I don't know anything about you but you'll do better in medicine without assuming things about people, or making personal attacks over professional opinions. Ridiculous.

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lol

 

...

 

This has nothing to do with ethics. I wouldn't lie on an application. Casper doesn't ask you to be factual with your examples, nor does it expect you to.

 

I'm a third year med student at Mac, just about to graduate and starting residency in the summer. I've taken casper for both med school and for residency application (some programs require it now). I also marked casper for two years in a row. I am extremely familiar with it.

 

The point of the exam as developed by McMaster and is to evaluate reasoning, not personal circumstances. The question asking you to describe a conflict is only marked on how you describe it, not what the circumstances are, because markers have no way to verify.

 

I don't know anything about you but you'll do better in medicine without assuming things about people, or making personal attacks over professional opinions. Ridiculous.

You can certainly tackle ethical dilemas and situation based questions without lying. I get what you are saying but if you are telling them you are drawing on your personal experiences while answering the question and you make something up, regardless of whether you are a 3rd year MAC student or an elephant, you are lying and essentially trying to cheat your way in. 

 

If McMaster is testing your logical thinking and you lie in the question, what does that tell me about you? you're a liar. I am not assuming anything about you, you said "hey just make something up" as a future medical professional that is worrisome. Maybe they teach ethics in 4th year? 

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You aren't lying because it makes no difference about the circumstances. If your question is describe a time you had a conflict with a coworker, you are explicitly not evaluated on what job you were performing. IE if your story was about how you are a CEO and you had a conflict with your board of directors, you could just as easily get the same score for a question about you and your coworker at mcdonalds. The point im trying to make is that casper evaluates on reasoning and understanding of ethics and issues important to medicine. You are not evaluated on your experiences. I'm not saying to lie in every question about how you personally were curing cancer or whatever, I'm saying that there's literally no advantage to be specific to your own circumstances beyond what helps to get your point across.

 

For example, if your question is about how you dealt with a conflict, there is absolutely no benefit to write three sentences and waste half the time for the question describing how, at the time, you were the president of your schools pre-med club or whatever. You should just write that you were in a school club for context, because you are just wasting time on things you won't get any extra points on.

 

Also, say you haven't been in a situation where you had a conflict with a co-worker. Instead of writing about how you've never had a conflict because you're so friendly however if you ever did have a conflict you would blah blah blah, its better to just give a straightforward imaginary example because you get the same amount of points and it saves you time.

 

If you feel better going into every factual detail that's fair enough, but I assure you the markers do not care and you are only wasting your time that could be better spent supporting your answers with relevant content.

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  • 1 month later...
On 5/4/2017 at 1:17 AM, Amanda Weinburg said:

You can certainly tackle ethical dilemas and situation based questions without lying. I get what you are saying but if you are telling them you are drawing on your personal experiences while answering the question and you make something up, regardless of whether you are a 3rd year MAC student or an elephant, you are lying and essentially trying to cheat your way in. 

 

If McMaster is testing your logical thinking and you lie in the question, what does that tell me about you? you're a liar. I am not assuming anything about you, you said "hey just make something up" as a future medical professional that is worrisome. Maybe they teach ethics in 4th year? 

Couldn't agree more Amanda!

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  • 2 weeks later...
On 5/2/2017 at 11:43 PM, bearded frog said:

 

lol

 

...

 

This has nothing to do with ethics. I wouldn't lie on an application. Casper doesn't ask you to be factual with your examples, nor does it expect you to.

 

I'm a third year med student at Mac, just about to graduate and starting residency in the summer. I've taken casper for both med school and for residency application (some programs require it now). I also marked casper for two years in a row. I am extremely familiar with it.

 

The point of the exam as developed by McMaster and is to evaluate reasoning, not personal circumstances. The question asking you to describe a conflict is only marked on how you describe it, not what the circumstances are, because markers have no way to verify.

 

I don't know anything about you but you'll do better in medicine without assuming things about people, or making personal attacks over professional opinions. Ridiculous.

So are most of the CASPer assessors Mac med students?

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