I'm just going to let them sleep. Well, Casper season is heating up. Today, I want to give you four things that you absolutely must avoid when completing your Casper test. We have tons of resources on preparation strategies, thinking through the different question types, and things like that. But today, I want to talk about four things to avoid when you're actually in the process of completing that Casper test. Before I get into that, hi, my name is Dr. Sarah Klebe and I'm an admissions expert at BMO. If you'd like our help preparing for your CASPer test, simply go to bmocasper.com and we'll get you started on your preparations and put you into contact with one of our admissions experts. Now, on to those CASPer tips. So, things that you have to avoid in your CASPer test. First and foremost, keep an eye out for the little things. What do I mean by that? Make sure your caps lock isn't turned on. Avoid slang. Avoid Curse words. Try to be as grammatically correct as possible. Try to minimize your spelling errors. Casper is a written test. Unlike the MMI where you're speaking in Casper, your, you know, your text is doing all the talking for you. And while you aren't going to necessarily be graded on your use of English or anything like that, being able to put your thoughts into words capably Demonstrates that you are a good communicator and communication skills are one of the things that Casper is trying to evaluate. Also, little things like, you know, trying to make sure that your caps lock isn't on and things like that. Those demonstrate your attention to detail, right? It can be easy to take. Casper, maybe not as seriously because a lot of people will do it in their homes, maybe on their couch or in bed. It's likely a less formal situation because you complete it on your computer, but you have to take it just as seriously as an MMI or any other interview because even though you're not being visibly watched, you're not demonstrating your body language and things like that, they're still trying to intuit a whole lot of things about you. And so demonstrating that you can pay attention to details and things like that is something that they're going to want to see. Number two, don't quote from your preparation materials. If you've been following our advice and you've been preparing in advance for CASPer, then you've likely been looking at a number of different resources, hopefully some sample questions and answers and some guides and things like that, but also some key texts around the ethics and standards of the profession that you're pursuing. And those resources are likely going to be quite academic. And you want to make sure that while you're utilizing the ideas that come from those resources, that you're still also utilizing your own authentic voice. So for example, almost all aspiring medical students are familiar with the book Doing Right. It is one of the classic texts and ethics in that field and one that we often strongly encourage students to reflect on. But, uh... Phrasing a response, utilizing the language from a heavy ethics text simply isn't going to sound like you. Most people in their general, even formalized vernacular language, don't talk like ethics books. So, you know, saying something like, according to the principles of justice, as beefy as that sounds and as sort of, you know, television level dramatic as it is. it's not going to sound as authentic as in order to be fair to everyone involved Right. The two concepts are the same, right? Ideally, justice is fairness and stating that you're going to do something out of fairness and then drawing on those principles of justice is essentially the same thing as talking according to the principle of justice. But you're using your own words. Remember, in Casper tests and in situational judgment tests of all kinds, they're trying to figure out who you are. are, right? And in Casper, again, all they have is your written text. They don't have your body language. They don't have your eye contact. They don't have your smile. They don't have your physical presentation or any of those signs that we give off when we're engaging people in a real life situation. They only have your text. And so if your text comes off as, as robotic, as just a sort of rehashing of jargon, as something that is trying to maybe over-formalize, that's going to send off signals that you maybe don't want to send off. They want to know who you are. They want to, you know, ideally, hopefully see your best self, your most professional self, your most refined self, yourself on display for others. So, you know, you don't want to be just, you know. the person sort of, you know, chilling back on the couch and hanging out and doing this test. No, you want to present your refined self, but you still want to present yourself. Right. We have this sort of discussion at BMO about the sort of problem with saying that you should just be yourself. You shouldn't necessarily just be yourself because who we are differs based on our context. Right. Who I am in my home with my partner and my cats and my bunnies and Netflix is a little bit different maybe than who I am when I'm doing these videos or when I'm giving a lecture or doing something else. Those are both authentic parts of myself, but I'm sort of highlighting certain qualities in one context and not really worrying about them in the other because I'm in my pajamas on the couch. But we understand that there's a difference in these things. So do be your best self, but make sure that you're also being yourself and not just robotically regurgitating catchphrases or jargon from the heavy text that you're using for preparation. Number three, if you come across a question or a prompt that you simply don't know how to respond to, don't leave the response blank just for that reason. Now, this deserves a little bit of unpacking, and I'll talk just a little bit about how CASPer is scored because we've talked about how CASPer is scored in other videos and in blogs and I'll make sure to have resources that link to those for you so that you can look into this. But essentially, with CASPer, each station comes with a prompt and three questions, and each station is evaluated out of nine total points. if you've been a student for a long time, and you probably have, you would probably naturally assume that, okay, there are three questions at each sort of station, and each station is evaluated out of nine. So each question must be worth three points. But that is not how Casper is scored. Each station is marked out of nine, regardless of how many questions you answer. So it's okay, in principle. to not answer all three questions. If you simply run out of time, that's fine. They know that you're under immense time pressure. You have five minutes to get through this prompt and respond to those three questions. People, you know, put in half answers or run out of time in the middle of a sentence all the time, because that's just a really short amount of time to say an awful lot. So if you get into that situation, don't beat yourself up if you leave a question blank because of that. But this tip is precisely about sort of the opposite situation where you simply feel like you don't know what to say, so you don't say anything at all. That's not what you want to do. If you are having trouble coming up with a response to an ethically challenging or emotionally volatile type situation, explain why you're having a hard time coming up with a response. Put your thoughts into writing because number one, that's going to help you think through where to actually go with your answer while still generating content and not just letting the clock tick down with nothing happening. And number two, demonstrating your thought process is exactly what they want to see you doing. Now, you know, ideally you'll have some structures and some ideas as to how you want to formulate answers to challenging situations because you'll be preparing ahead of time, you'll be looking at sample questions, expert responses, and things like that. But. If you legitimately don't know what to do, talk about why you're having trouble. What things are you weighing? What outcomes or ramifications are you concerned about? What kinds of people or resources would you consult for guidance in moving forward if you were literally dropped into that situation right now as you are and you had no idea what to do? What would be your first instinct? Who are you going to call? What resources are you going to look up on the computer or in the library? Use this as an opportunity to demonstrate that you recognize your own limitations and how to ultimately overcome them. that way you're not skipping over questions simply because you don't know what to say. You're not getting sort of locked up and frozen because your mind just won't move forward the way that you need it to, which sometimes happens in high pressure situations. And you won't be left with that sort of sinking feeling that comes with seeing the clock run out and you having nothing or virtually nothing on the page. That's going to, you know, potentially God. be something that's going to stress you out as you move forward and you have to keep moving forward with the test. Now, if something like that does happen, and as I've mentioned in another video, you've got to just sort of set that frustration or that upset aside so that you can move forward. You've got to learn to compartmentalize that and sort of be upset about it later. But one way to avoid that is to avoid those situations where we feel just sort of frozen or paralyzed because we don't know how to move forward. So don't leave that response completely blank. Walk your way through it and demonstrate your thought processes for the evaluators. And finally, the most common thing said about the CASPer test is that there's no way to prepare in advance. And this final tip is do not listen to those people. It is absolutely true that you cannot prepare for the specific questions that you're going to get in Casper. You have no idea what questions you're going to get. The scenarios that you get are real life scenarios from almost any facet of life. So the possibilities are nearly infinite. There's no way to define what specific questions you're going to get. Of course, you're going to have to be very careful. course. But you can absolutely look into the core competencies, key qualities, ethical priorities, and general professional boundaries and responsibilities of the field you are pursuing. You can absolutely work on your communication skills. You can absolutely think through your own biography, your own life history. And think through ways that you have navigated difficult situations, things that you did well, and maybe things that you want to improve upon in the future. Professionalization is a learned thing. It's a skill like anything else, just like all of the professional characteristics that they are looking for. No one is born a perfect, refined professional. That doesn't happen. And even the perfect, supposedly perfect, refined professionals that you see in the world, you know what, they have non-professional aspects of their personalities as well. It's all about what you disclose to whom in what context. So, these are absolutely things that can be refined over time. It does take time. It does take preparation. It does take learning in advance a little bit about the expectations and sort of ideals of professionals in the field you're pursuing. But that's work that you should be doing anyway as someone who wants to pursue that field. You need to demonstrate that you have dedicated some of your time to that. you don't have to come off like a perfect professional. You, if you're trying to get into med school, you don't have to come off like a doctor yet. Vet school, you don't have to come off like a veterinarian yet. Any of those things, they know you're not there yet. They know that you're still a student. You're still learning. You're still towards the beginning of your professionalization process, but you can start building those traits and qualities in advance and you can absolutely learn how to portray those and demonstrate those. key qualities, core competencies, ideal components of your own authentic self in something like a situational judgment test like CASPer. So, I hope that you enjoyed this video and that it was helpful. If so, please do go ahead, like it, share it with a friend who might benefit from it. Be sure to follow us on whatever social media platform you're on right now. If you'd like us to help you with your CASPer prep, you can go to bmocasper.com or just follow the link that should appear either above or below this video and set up your free initial consultation. We'll set you up with one of our admissions experts to answer any questions you might have and get you started with your preparations. We have programs to suit any of your needs and we're always happy to work with you to help determine what plan is going to support you and your goals most effectively. As ever, thank you so very much for your time. Take good care and I'll see you next time.