Type one: motivation and fit
- •Why do you want to become a physician, and why now?
- •What draws you to primary care or community-based medicine, if anything?
- •What is one thing you'd bring to your medical school class that is hard to see on your application?
These feel easy, which is exactly why they produce the most forgettable answers. The fix is to skip the general reasons that everyone gives, like helping people or loving science, and go straight to one specific moment that changed how you thought about medicine. Name the moment, explain what it made you realize, and connect it to what you want to do. One real story beats a list of five reasons every time.
Type two: past experience
- •Tell us about a time you disagreed with someone on a team. How did you handle it?
- •Describe a mistake you made that affected someone else, and what you did afterward.
- •Tell us about a time you spoke up for someone who wasn't being heard.
For these, keep the setup short. Many applicants spend sixty of their ninety seconds explaining the background and then rush the only part the reviewer cares about, which is what you did and what you learned. Give the situation in two sentences, spend most of your time on your actions and your reasoning, and finish with what you'd do the same or differently now. For mistake questions, pick a real mistake with real stakes. A humble-brag like working too hard is easy to spot and quietly costs you trust.
Type three: scenarios
- •You're volunteering at a clinic and notice a patient leaving without picking up a prescription they clearly need. What do you do?
- •A friend in your study group tells you they've been using an AI tool to write assignments that are supposed to be individual work. How do you respond?
- •You're on a community health project and realize the people you're trying to reach aren't attending any of the sessions. What would you do next?
Scenario questions reward the same habits that help on CASPer. Don't jump straight to a verdict. Start by saying what you'd want to understand first, which usually means talking to the person involved before assuming anything. Acknowledge the perspectives of everyone in the situation, including the person who seems to be in the wrong. Then commit to a clear action and explain why, and mention what you'd do if your first approach didn't work. Reviewers want to see how you reason, not whether you find the one correct answer.
Type four: values and health care issues
- •Millions of people in Canada don't have a family doctor. What do you think is one realistic part of the solution?
- •What does health equity mean to you, in your own words?
- •Should physicians share their personal opinions with patients on non-medical topics? Why or why not?
Nobody expects a policy expert. What reviewers look for is that you understand the issue is complicated, that you can hold more than one side fairly, and that you can still land on a reasoned view. Try to ground your answer in something you've actually seen, like a family member's experience or a clinic you volunteered at, because a real example makes your answer sound thoughtful instead of rehearsed. Avoid sweeping claims you can't back up, and it's fine to say what you'd want to learn more about.
Type five: written responses
- •Describe a community you belong to and one health challenge it faces.
- •Reflect on a time your first impression of someone turned out to be wrong.
- •What is one quality you're still working on, and what are you doing about it?
Written questions catch people off guard because there's no prep window, so the clock starts the moment the question appears. Spend the first thirty seconds jotting a three-line outline in the answer box itself: your main point, your example, and your takeaway. Then write in plain, clear sentences, and leave the last minute to reread and fix anything confusing. A complete answer with a clear ending beats a beautifully written one that gets cut off mid-sentence. It also helps to check your typing speed beforehand, since a slow typist needs shorter, tighter answers. And to be very clear, write these yourself. Schools like TMU disqualify applications where responses were written by someone else or by generative AI, and reviewers are reading for your voice anyway.
How to turn these into real practice
- •Shuffle the questions and do them in random order, so you're practicing reacting rather than preparing.
- •Record every video answer on your phone with a strict timer, and do written ones in a plain document with a timer running and spellcheck off.
- •Watch or reread every answer once and write down a single thing to improve before the next one.
- •Once you're comfortable, do six mixed questions back to back, including two written ones, to mimic a full assessment.
- •Repeat a question a week later and compare. Seeing your own improvement is the best cure for Kira nerves.
Practicing these on your own will get you most of the way. What it can't tell you is how your answers land for someone watching from the outside, whether your example actually shows what you think it shows, or which of your habits a reviewer would notice first. That depends on you and your recordings, not on a list of questions, and it's the reason I run Kira prep as timed practice followed by watching the recordings back together. If you'd like to talk about where you're at first, book the free fifteen minute discovery call and bring whichever question type gives you the most trouble.