What is the Casper test, and why do some medicine pathways use it?
Casper is an online situational-judgement test used by some medicine and health pathways to assess personal characteristics rather than academic marks. Applicants respond to short everyday scenarios, in typing and on video, and each response is rated by a different trained rater. Everest Tutoring prepares WA applicants for it alongside the UCAT and interview stages.
Written by Hari Ravichandran, Founder and Principal Tutor. Updated 13 September 2026
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What the test is actually measuring
Casper is built and run by Acuity Insights. It does not test biology, chemistry or clinical knowledge. Every scenario is an ordinary situation, usually involving other people, and the marker is judging how you weigh competing interests, whether you notice the other person's position, and whether you can explain a decision without being defensive.
That is why a high ATAR and a high UCAT score do not predict a Casper result. The skill being sampled is closer to how you would handle a difficult conversation at work than to anything a school exam asks for.
Each section is rated by a different rater, so one weak answer does not follow you through the test. It also means consistency matters more than one brilliant response.
The format, part by part
The test is sat online from home with a webcam, in one sitting, and the sections come in two kinds. The exact number of sections and the time allowed per section are set by Acuity Insights for each admissions cycle, so check the current test-taker guide before you sit it.
| Part | What you do | What it rewards |
|---|---|---|
| Typed-response sections | Read a short scenario, then type answers to two or three follow-up questions inside a fixed time limit | Fast structure: name the issue, weigh both sides, decide, say why |
| Video-response sections | Watch or read a scenario, then record a spoken answer in one take with no retries | Calm delivery and a clear line of reasoning under time pressure |
| Scoring | Each section is rated by a different trained rater against the same characteristics | Consistency across the whole test rather than one strong answer |
| Reporting | Programmes receive your result as a band relative to other applicants, for that admissions cycle only | Sitting it once, properly prepared, rather than resitting |
Why a pathway would ask for it at all
Admissions teams have more academically excellent applicants than places. Marks separate almost nobody at the top, so pathways add a second measure that is harder to coach into a single number: how an applicant reasons about people.
Some pathways use Casper to shortlist for interview, some use it alongside the interview, and some do not use it at all. Which applies to you depends on the pathway you are applying through in the year you apply, and it changes. Read the admissions page for your own pathway rather than relying on what a friend sat last year.
How to prepare without over-rehearsing
Rehearsed answers score badly, because raters can hear them. What works is practising a repeatable shape for a response, then applying it to unfamiliar scenarios under the real clock.
Everest Tutoring runs this as part of its medicine and dentistry interview preparation: scenario sets under time, a written or recorded response every session, and feedback on the reasoning rather than the wording. The same habits carry directly into the interview round.
Two practical things most applicants get wrong: they type long and finish nothing, and they answer only the first of the three questions. Practising with a timer fixes both faster than reading advice about it.
Sources: Acuity Insights (Casper) · UCAT ANZ
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