The CASPer test is an open-response situational judgment test built by Acuity Insights, and originally developed by the admissions team at McMaster University. It puts you in ordinary situations, some shown as video and some as text, then asks open questions you answer under a clock. Acuity states the test has two sections: video response and typed response. Every scenario is scored by a different human rater, so no single reader forms an impression of your whole test. Programs receive a z-score and a percentile. You receive a quartile. There is no pass mark and no single correct answer.
What is the CASPer test actually measuring?
Acuity describes Casper as measuring social intelligence and professionalism, and names competencies including empathy, ethics, communication and judgment. That is a claim about process, not content. Nobody is checking whether you know a guideline. They are checking whether, given a situation with more than one reasonable reading, you slow down enough to work out who is affected and what you do not yet know.
This is why strong writers with no plan score in the middle. Fluent prose about what a good person would do is not reasoning. Naming the person in front of you, saying what you would ask them, and saying what you would do differently depending on the answer, is.
How long does the CASPer test take?
Acuity’s applicant site states that Casper “takes approximately 65-85 minutes to complete, including two optional breaks,” across 11 scenarios: 4 video-response scenarios with 1 minute per answer, and 7 typed scenarios with 3.5 minutes for both questions. Its applicant communications toolkit gives the same 65 to 85 minute figure. Do not plan your test day off a number you read on a coaching site, including this one. Your booking confirmation and the on-screen instructions are the authority for your date. For the section-by-section breakdown this site keeps current, see what is the 2026 CASPer test format.
How is CASPer scored?
Acuity states that rather than one rater scoring an entire test, each scenario is scored by a different rater, and that scores are standardized to show your relative standing within the same test instance. Two consequences follow, and both matter more than any content advice.
First, a bad scenario is contained. The rater who read your weakest answer never reads your strongest one, so one scenario that went wrong does not colour the rest. Applicants who spiral after a bad section lose far more marks to the spiral than to the section.
Second, your score is relative to the people who sat your test, not to an absolute standard. That is why nobody can promise you a quartile, and why this site will not. See what is a good CASPer score and how quartiles work.
A scenario, and two answers
You work evenings at a campus print shop. A student you have served many times brings in a poster advertising a study group for a first-year course. Reading it while you set up the job, you see a line near the bottom offering a paid “answer key” for the course’s graded assignments.
A weak answer. “I would refuse to print the poster because academic dishonesty is wrong and cheating harms everyone. I would report the student to the university. Integrity is the foundation of the profession and I would not want to be complicit.”
A strong answer. “I would stop the job and tell the customer what I had seen, because I might be reading it wrong: an answer key could mean worked solutions the instructor already released, or it could mean the graded assignments themselves. I would ask which it is. If it is released material, I print it. If it is the graded work, I tell him I cannot print it, say plainly why, and tell him I am not going to pretend I did not read it. Whether I take it further depends on what the shop’s policy says and on what he does next. If he withdraws the poster, the matter is between him and his conscience. If he takes it to another shop, the people it harms are the classmates being sold an unfair advantage, and then I would tell the course instructor what I saw, and tell him I was going to.”
What separates them. The weak answer is not unethical, it is empty. It decides guilt from an ambiguous line, names a value instead of an action, and reports a person without ever speaking to him. The strong answer does four things the weak one skips: it says out loud what is ambiguous, it asks the person, it branches on the answer, and it warns him before escalating. Notice it is also less confident and more useful. That is the trade you want.
Key numbers
- Two sections: video response and typed response.
- 65 to 85 minutes including two optional breaks, per Acuity’s applicant site. Confirm yours in your booking.
- One different human rater per scenario.
- Programs get a z-score and a percentile. You get a quartile.
- Developed at McMaster University, now run by Acuity Insights.
If you would rather be taught this than read it, the CASPer programs run through the method scenario by scenario.
Related: how to prepare for CASPer and common CASPer mistakes.
Last reviewed 17 September 2026. Written by Arvin Ardakani, final-year medical student, 4th quartile on CASPer four times.