The CASPer exam is essentially an adapted situational judgement test, used first by schools in Canada and the US, and now being utilised across the world – notably in the UK, Australia, and New Zealand. As its popularity has increased, so has the lengths that students go to prepare for it.
Whilst Altus Assessments (the company that produces the exam) claims that one cannot prepare for it, in reality it is entirely possible to prepare for it, as it’s possible to prepare for anything from different forms of IQ test through to a regular school examination. A good CASPer prep course is therefore vital to your preparation, and a CASPer tutor can also be useful for many students.
What does a CASPer Prep Course Offer?
A CASPer prep course will offer a significant number of questions for you to attempt. For example, the offering from BlackStone Tutors – a well-established Medicine-specific education agency based in the UK – offers more than 200 scenarios. Equally, a good CASPer course – like that one – will offer a range of different scenarios that are representative of the kind of content that you will find in the test itself.
They will have undertaken extensive research into how the CASPer works and the kind of question that is asked, as well as refreshing the offering as the CASPer is updated. It’s vital to remember that a course will also offer both written prompts and video prompts – free online resources are likely to offer only written prompts.
A CASPer course will also offer model answers that allow you to assess your own progress and thus to iterate your responses. A good CASPer course will also differentiate between model answers for written and video responses (remember that you have to record your responses to some questions via your webcam), and will ensure that both the content provided (in terms of questions).
The model answers are faithful to what is given in the test, and what could reasonably be produced by an excellent student under test conditions.
CASPer courses should also be vocation-agnostic; in other words, they will be suitable for candidates taking any of the CASPer tests – that means not just medics, but also those interested in dentistry, pharmacy, PA, or nursing.
Lastly, a CASPer prep course will offer specific tips, tricks and approaches to different types of questions, allowing you to approach them with confidence in the exam and to work to the best of your ability.
What does a CASPer Tutor Offer?
If taking a CASPer test course isn’t enough, and you wish to solidify your learning, you can also engage a CASPer tutor. A tutor will offer the following:
– Techniques and approaches that allow for more efficient and effective ways of answering questions. Often, the key to success is not just in the experiences that you have had or in your attributes, but rather in the manner in which you convey these experiences or attributes. Through using tried and tested techniques, you will better be able to deliver content – and thus pick up more marks in the exam.
– A clear overview of how the test works, and what the test is designed to look for. Often students find it a little difficult to understand what the test’s purpose is, or how it was designed – and to understand it exactly can take considerable time and research.
– A good CASPer tutor – again, Blackstone Tutors can offer personal tutors for this exam – will have read up on the test extensively – including documents and lectures aimed at CASPer graders, and at institutions considering using it.
– Realistic and objective assessments of your answers, and the ability to contrast them with those that have been given by other students. This is really useful when you wish to understand your level, and check that your answers are strong compared to those being given by others.
Conclusions
To conclude, using a CASPer prep course is a great way of getting ready for the test, as it will allow you to take on a range of sample questions and check that the answers that you give are accurate. Other forms of CASPer training, like using a CASPer tutor, can also be beneficial on top of this, especially if you are either concerned about the test, or believe that you need to do particularly well in it.
