My CASPer Cheat Sheet: CASPer Question Categories and Types

CASPer Test Question Type #1: Scenario or Situational

Scenario questions involve giving you a prompt where you are placed in a specific situation and asked what you would do in that situation. CASPer scenario type questions are easily identified by phrases such as “What would you do?”

CASPer scorers are more interested in how you approach a difficult scenario as opposed to what you would actually do if you were placed in that situation. They know that you may not actually know what to do in a provided scenario, which is totally fine! Graders want to see that you can think through difficult situations and highlight different attributes such as empathy, critical thinking and situational awareness.

CASPer Scenario Question Strategy

Here’s a step-by-step guide to how to answer CASPer scenario questions:

CASPer Scenario Sample Questions

How to Prepare for CASPer Scenario Questions

What helped me with practicing for CASPer scenario questions was using MMI practice questions, which are similar to CASPer questions. This was an excellent resource for having multiple prompts that I could think through and practice using the above structure on. Additionally, I practiced talking through my answers out loud, timing my responses, and analyzing my own decisions and thought process. All this helped me with speed and responding to CASPer scenario prompts within the time limits.

With any sort of conflict that I encountered, I developed a habit of using the CASPer answer strategy I outlined above and coming up with my own potential solutions. And, with any sort of prior conflict/experience where I thought I made the incorrect choice, I would go through that scenario in the CASPer format and try to come up with alternative solutions based off of what I know now. These mental exercises helped me practice beyond sample CASPer scenarios and prompts.

CASPer Test Question Type #2: Policy

CASPer policy questions ask your opinion and the knowledge you have on specific topics and healthcare policies. The policies covered in these CASPer questions will be influenced by the program you’re applying to that requires the CASPer test. So, medical school applicants will be asked questions about healthcare policies, similar to MMI policy questions.

The CASPer graders will not care so much about your opinion actually is on a topic, but more so if you’re able to show that you have good thoughts towards the development of your opinion. So, when answering these, do not be so concerned about whether or not your opinion is the same as the CASPer evaluators’, but ensure that you are being respectful to both sides of the argument since they are rarely black and white.

CASPer Policy Question Strategy

Here’s an answer strategy to use for CASPer policy type questions:

CASPer Policy Sample Questions

How to prepare for CASPer Policy Questions

Preparing for these types of CASPer questions involves having at least a baseline level of knowledge on the topic. I looked up hot topics in politics, medicine, and current events in preparation for my CASPer test. For example, abortion and euthanasia are hot topics today, and it was crucial for me to gain a nuanced understanding of both issues to prepare for CASPer policy questions. 

Ready to see some of this advice in action? Here are 5 Official CASPer test questions and our expert responses!

CASPer Test Question Type #3: Personal

CASPer personal questions are based off of your own prior experiences and what you learned from those experiences.

The difference between this type of question and a scenario question is that a personal question specifically asks about a prior experience YOU had. While you may have had a similar experience to a prompt presented in a scenario style question, it will be important not to mix the two types of questions.

CASPer Personal Question Strategy

CASPer Personal Sample Questions

How to prepare for CASPer Personal Questions

To prepare for personal CASPer questions, I would analyze my own past experiences or conflicts. For example, I would think of my time as a leader when I was on various sports teams and remember any conflicts that occurred between teammates where I had to intervene. When thinking of experiences where I had personal conflict, I would think through what I learned from that experience and how I used that learning experience to grow and improve. Self-reflection provided me with ready-to-use examples in my CASPer answers and key points to add to my answers well ahead of my CASPer test date.

CASPer Test Question Category #1: Ethical Dilemma

In an ethical dilemma, you are often faced with a choice that will directly impact others, usually in the form of potentially harming them, allowing harm to come to them, or violating their moral and ethical standards. Or, you may find yourself having to navigate ethically tricky territory, or you may face a scenario in which you must deal with competing ethical priorities. These are incredibly common in medical scenarios, but they can arise in any context.

CASPer Ethical Dilemma Category Example

For example, if you are given the role of a physician in an emergency room with an unconscious 16-year-old patient who needs a blood transfusion or they will die, and you find a recently-signed Jehovah’s Witness card in their wallet, that would be an ethical dilemma. Jehovah’s Witnesses reject blood transfusions on religious grounds, so moving ahead with a transfusion to save the patient’s life would violate that patient’s moral and ethical convictions; as a physician in the scenario, however, you may want to prioritize the saving of a life, particularly since the patient is a minor. This places you in a difficult ethical position with competing priorities, which directly impact the patient’s physical and spiritual well-being.

Here’s another classic ethical dilemma in a medical context: 2 patients require organ transplants, but only one organ is available:

Other common ethical dilemmas may put you in a position where you must stand up to a colleague or authority figure behaving inappropriately, or where you must report ethically-questionable behavior of a peer or superior. Any question that draws on your sense of values is a potential ethical dilemma, and sometimes ethical dilemmas are part of other question categories.

It is important that you are familiar with the ethical standards of your chosen profession, so that you have a good idea of the expectations and priorities of those in the field. It’s not necessary to memorize entire books of ethics, and you’re not expected to be able to respond perfectly – they know you’re still learning, growing, and going through the process of professionalization. However, you should be able to demonstrate that you can reason through an ethically sound or compelling decision, even in scenarios in which it seems like there are no “good” options.

CASPer Test Question Category #2: Professional Boundaries

Questions in this category revolve around maintaining the invisible barriers that exist between professionals, their clients/students/patients, and the wider public. Professional boundaries exist to protect parties on both sides of that barrier, ensuring power dynamics are not exploited and everyone is treated respectfully and appropriately. As noted above, scenarios that present questions of professional boundaries may also contain an ethical dilemma, and what is “right” may not always be obvious.

CASPer Professional Boundaries Category Example

For example, if you are given the role of a professor who learns that one of their students is homeless, it might occur to you to offer that student a spare bedroom in your own home, until proper housing can be secured. However, this would be a violation of professional boundaries; because of the power dynamic at play, such an act isn’t as ethical as it may seem on the surface. Working with the student to find long-term solutions and to determine a more appropriate short-term patch would be preferable to violating the boundary that exists to protect both professors and their students.

CASPer Test Question Category #3: Conflict of Interest

A conflict of interest occurs when someone acts in their own interest and benefit, over and above their duties and responsibilities to others.

Here, again, a sense of what is and is not ethical, and a feel for the boundaries that exist in one’s own desired profession is necessary for navigating this successfully. You must demonstrate that you are able to avoid acting out of your own self-interest, and that you are willing and able to intervene when others work to benefit themselves when they should be serving others. Stepping in when classmates are cheating or plagiarizing, being willing to take action when a superior is making questionable choices, and ensuring others aren’t profiting from the work of others – these are all key moves to make when a conflict of interest in at play.

Take some time in your preparation to honestly reflect on how you would approach these kinds of situations, and note that you shouldn’t approach this by simply thinking about what you think the test evaluators “want to hear”. Disingenuousness is easier to spot than it may seem, and it’s often clear when someone is robotically parroting a generic response.

CASPer Conflict of Interest Category Example

Such conflicts often arise (or have the potential to arise) in business relations – for example, if a physician receives gifts from a pharmaceutical representative, that is a conflict of interest. In such a case, these gifts could influence the physician in terms of which medications they prescribe, showing favoritism toward that pharmaceutical manufacturer’s drugs over and above others, which isn’t necessarily in the best interest of patients (nor is it in line with the ethical or legal boundaries established around the practice of medicine and prescribing drugs). If someone is trying to personally profit or otherwise benefit from a particular professional arrangement, or using such an arrangement to benefit others in a way that isn’t ethical, this could be a conflict of interest.

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To your success,

Your friends at BeMo

BeMo Academic Consulting

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