CASPer Test New Zealand: What It Is and How to Prepare

Quiz CASPer Practice Test

Guide to preparing for the CASPer situational judgement test

If you’re applying to a veterinary science, medicine, or other health-profession programme in New Zealand or Australia, you may be asked to sit CASPer alongside your academic application. This guide walks through what the test actually assesses, how it’s run, and what tends to catch applicants off guard.

What is CASPer?

CASPer (Computer-based Assessment for Sampling Personal characteristics) is an online situational judgement test developed and administered by Acuity Insights. Rather than testing academic knowledge, it’s designed to assess the non-academic qualities that admissions committees care about: things like communication, collaboration, empathy, professionalism, ethical reasoning, self-awareness, and problem-solving under ambiguity.

Unlike a written exam with “correct” answers to memorise, CASPer presents short scenarios — some everyday, some ethically tricky — and asks you to respond to probing questions about how you’d think through or react to the situation. There’s no single right answer; assessors are looking at how you reason, not just what you conclude.

CASPer has been used in veterinary science admissions across Australia and New Zealand for more than a decade, and its footprint in health-profession admissions continues to expand. Massey University, New Zealand’s sole veterinary school, has incorporated CASPer into its Bachelor of Veterinary Science selection process since piloting it with students in 2016. Some New Zealand medical schools are also moving toward CASPer as part of their non-academic assessment: the University of Auckland has indicated it plans to introduce CASPer for its MBChB admissions from 2028 entry, while the University of Otago has continued using UCAT-ANZ rather than adopting CASPer at this stage. Because programme requirements change and vary by intake year, always confirm directly with the specific programme you’re applying to whether CASPer is required for your admission cycle, rather than assuming based on a previous year’s process.

Who administers it, and why it exists

CASPer is owned and run by Acuity Insights (formerly known as Altus Assessments), a company that builds admissions tools used by health-profession and other graduate and professional programmes across several countries, including Canada, the United States, Australia, and New Zealand. Universities choose to include CASPer in their selection process because GPA and other academic metrics don’t reliably predict “soft skills” like bedside manner, ethical judgement, or how someone handles conflict in a clinical or professional team — qualities that matter enormously in veterinary and health careers but are hard to capture on a transcript.

Each university sets its own policy on how heavily CASPer counts, and whether it’s used as a pass/fail screen, a ranking factor alongside interviews and GPA, or something else. The test itself doesn’t have a universal “pass mark” set by Acuity Insights — how your results are used is entirely up to the receiving institution.

Eligibility and when you need to sit it

There’s no separate eligibility requirement to sit CASPer itself — anyone applying to a programme that requests it can register. What matters is whether the programme you’re applying to lists CASPer as part of its admissions requirements for your intake year. This is typically stated clearly on the programme’s own admissions page, alongside academic prerequisites, interview stages, and any other selection tools like the UCAT-ANZ or a multiple mini interview (MMI).

If CASPer is required, you’ll usually need to register for a specific test type tied to your region and the programmes you’re applying to — for veterinary and postgraduate health-science admissions in Australia and New Zealand, this is generally the AUS/NZ-specific CASPer test type, registered through Acuity Insights’ own platform (takecasper.com). Always register for the exact test type your target programme names, since different test types correspond to different question sets and distribution options, and registering for the wrong one can mean your results don’t reach the right institution.

Format and procedure

CASPer is taken online, remotely, using your own computer with a webcam and microphone — there’s no need to travel to a test centre. The test is proctored to verify identity and maintain test integrity.

The assessment is built from a series of short scenarios, split across two response formats:

• Video-response scenarios, where you watch a short video depicting a situation, then record a spoken answer to each follow-up question within a tight time limit (typically around a minute per question).
• Typed-response scenarios, where you read a written scenario and type your answers to a set of follow-up questions within a set number of minutes.

In total, the test usually runs to around 90–110 minutes, including a couple of optional short breaks partway through. Scenarios cover a broad mix of situations — some directly related to healthcare or veterinary settings, others drawn from everyday personal or workplace situations — because the aim is to see how you reason and communicate generally, not to test subject-specific knowledge.

Because there’s no opportunity to redraft a typed answer at length or re-record a video response beyond the time given, much of what’s being assessed is how clearly and quickly you can organise your thinking under mild time pressure — not how polished your final wording is.

Fees

CASPer registration carries a test fee, plus a separate distribution fee for each institution or programme you choose to send your results to. Exact amounts vary by region, test type, and the current pricing set by Acuity Insights, and have changed between admissions cycles in recent years, so rather than quote a figure here that may already be out of date, check the current fee for your specific test type directly on Acuity Insights’ official CASPer registration platform before you register.

Validity period and renewal

CASPer scores are generally considered valid for one application cycle associated with the test sitting you register for, and most programmes expect you to sit a current test rather than relying on results from a previous year. If you’re applying again in a later cycle, you will typically need to register and sit CASPer again, since historical scores from an earlier intake are usually not reused. Always check your specific programme’s current policy on this, as practices can differ between institutions.

Consequences of a weak result

CASPer doesn’t carry a formal “fail” and “resit” structure the way a licensing exam might — instead, your result becomes one input the admitting institution weighs alongside your academic record, UCAT-ANZ score (where relevant), and interview performance. A weaker-than-hoped CASPer result doesn’t automatically disqualify you, but because some programmes do use CASPer as an early screening threshold before interview invitations go out, it can meaningfully affect your competitiveness within that intake. If you’re not selected in one cycle, reapplying in a future cycle means sitting CASPer again as part of a fresh application.

How to prepare

Because CASPer isn’t a content exam, “studying” for it looks different from cramming facts. The preparation that tends to help most is becoming comfortable with the format and the pace, so that on test day you’re focused on your answer rather than on figuring out how the test works:

• Get used to the time pressure. Practising with realistic scenario prompts and strict time limits — a set number of minutes per typed response, around a minute per video answer — helps you learn to structure a clear, well-reasoned answer quickly rather than freezing or rambling.
• Practise thinking out loud, calmly, on camera. The video-response format catches many applicants off guard the first time, simply because speaking a structured answer to a camera feels different from writing one. Rehearsing out loud, even informally, builds comfort with this.
• Work through varied scenario types. Ethical dilemmas, interpersonal conflicts, workplace situations, and everyday personal judgement calls all appear in CASPer. Exposure to a range of scenario styles — not just clinical or veterinary ones — helps you build a flexible approach rather than a single memorised framework.
• Focus on reasoning, not “correct” answers. Assessors are typically more interested in whether you’ve considered multiple perspectives, weighed trade-offs, and communicated clearly than in whether you landed on a particular conclusion. Practising how you explain your thinking matters more than trying to guess what the “right” response is.
• Check your tech setup well before test day. Since CASPer is proctored remotely, a reliable internet connection, a quiet space, and a working webcam and microphone are essential — technical issues during a live scenario can cost you valuable response time.

A CASPer practice test built around this situational judgement format — with timed video and typed scenarios covering ethics, communication, and professionalism — gives you a realistic feel for the pacing and scenario style before your real test day, so the format itself isn’t something you’re encountering for the first time when it counts.

Key takeaways

CASPer is a non-academic situational judgement assessment, administered by Acuity Insights, used by veterinary science and a growing number of health-profession programmes across New Zealand and Australia to assess qualities that grades alone can’t capture. It’s taken online, combines timed video and typed scenario responses, and is weighed by each institution alongside the rest of your application rather than carrying a universal pass mark. The single most useful thing you can do before sitting it for real is to get comfortable with its specific format and pace — which is exactly what focused, realistic practice is for.