Queen's Health Sciences and Nursing Supplementary Application
Queen’s Health Sciences and Queen’s Nursing use the same timed supplementary application on the Kira Talent platform: one written answer in ten minutes and one recorded video answer with two minutes to prepare and two to speak. Neither question is seen in advance. Here is the format, what both programs say they assess, and how to practice for a reflective question under a clock.
The format
- One written response. A reflective question, randomly selected. Ten minutes to write and submit, with a limit of about 285 words.
- One video response. A randomly selected question. Two minutes to prepare, then two minutes to record. One take.
- Platform. Kira Talent, with unlimited practice questions beforehand so the interface holds no surprises.
- Same process for Health Sciences and Nursing. Both programs, and Commerce, use this timed format. Nursing publishes a rubric; read it.
What the programs say they assess
Nursing lists resilience, adaptability, empathy and teamwork, along with problem solving, a collaborative mindset and a commitment to equitable care, and asks applicants to show integrity, initiative and community engagement. Health Sciences questions in the public record lean toward ethical reasoning and reflection: how you think about a situation with competing interests, and what you learned from something that happened to you.
That tells you the two question types to prepare for. A reflective question asks for a story from your own life and what it changed in you. A situational question puts you in a scenario, often with a person in distress or a conflict of loyalties, and asks what you would do. Have three or four stories ready for the first kind and a reasoning habit for the second.
The ten-minute written answer
Two hundred and eighty-five words in ten minutes is comfortable if you don’t plan on the page. Spend the first minute deciding your one point and your example. Write straight through for seven minutes. Use the last two to fix the ending and cut anything that repeats. For a reflective question, the shape is: what happened in two sentences, what you did, what it cost or taught you, and what you do differently now. The last part is where the marks are; most applicants run out of time before they reach it.
Practice question: Describe a time you had to care for someone who did not want your help.
My grandfather moved in with us after his stroke, and for the first month he refused to let anyone help him dress. He would take forty minutes and arrive at breakfast exhausted and furious. My mother and I kept offering and he kept saying no. What changed was that I stopped offering to help and started asking him to teach me. I said I needed to learn how the button hook worked in case I ever had to use one. He showed me, slowly, over three mornings, and by the third one he was letting me do the cuffs because his hands were tired from explaining. It was still his job; I was just the apprentice. I learned two things from that. The first is that refusing help is often about dignity rather than the task, and if you can find a way for the person to stay in charge, the help gets accepted. The second is uncomfortable: I had spent a month being annoyed at him for being difficult, when he was being exactly as difficult as I would be. Now, when someone turns down help, my first question is what they would lose by accepting it, and I try to answer that before I offer again.
The two-minute video answer
Two minutes of prep is enough to choose a story and decide your first and last sentences. It is not for writing a script, which you would then read off the screen. Two minutes to answer is long: aim for ninety to a hundred seconds of real content and stop cleanly. For a situational question, think out loud in order: what you’d want to know first, what you’d do, who you’d involve, and what you’d watch for afterwards.
Fifteen practice questions in the Queen’s format
AcceptMe practice questions written to the themes both programs publish. Not Queen’s questions. Run them with two minutes of prep and a two-minute clock; use the reflective ones for ten-minute writes too.
- Tell us about a time you noticed someone was struggling before they said anything. What did you notice, and what did you do?
- Describe a time you were wrong about a person. What led you to the wrong judgement, and what changed it?
- You are volunteering at a clinic and overhear a staff member speaking dismissively to a patient who doesn’t speak English well. What do you do?
- Tell us about a commitment you kept when it stopped being convenient. Why did you stay?
- Describe a time you had to deliver bad news. How did you decide what to say first?
- A close friend confides that they have been skipping meals to lose weight before a competition. What do you say, and what do you not say?
- Tell us about a time you disagreed with someone in authority. What did you do, and would you do it again?
- Describe a moment when you realised a group you were part of was excluding someone without meaning to.
- You are on a team where one member is doing visibly less. Everyone is frustrated. What do you do first?
- Tell us about a time you asked for help when you didn’t want to. What made you do it?
- What is a belief about health or wellbeing you held as a child that you have since changed? What changed it?
- Describe a time you had to stay calm while someone else was panicking.
- You witness a classmate cheating on a test that decides who gets into a limited program. What do you do?
- Tell us about a time you received feedback that was hard to hear and turned out to be right.
- Describe a community you belong to and something you did that made it better for someone other than yourself.
Mistakes specific to Queen’s
- Writing the reflective answer without the reflection. The story is the setup. What it changed in you is the answer.
- Spending prep time scripting. Choose, decide your ending, then talk.
- Situational answers with no first step. “I would be empathetic” is a trait, not an action. Say what you would say.
- Ignoring the rubric. Nursing publishes what it scores. Practice against it.
- Assuming the practice questions predict the real ones. They test the interface, not the skill. Practice with unseen questions on the real timers.
The Queen’s Commerce guide covers the same platform and timers from a business angle, and the Casper guide covers the test other nursing programs use instead.
Keep reading
- Casper Test for Nursing in Canada: Format and How to Practice The Casper format for the 2026-27 cycle, which Canadian nursing programs require it, what raters score, a sample one-minute answer and twelve scenarios.
- Queen's Commerce Supplementary Application: PSE and Video What the Queen's Commerce PSE essay is really asking, the timed written and video format, fifteen practice questions and a worked two-minute answer.
- Supplementary Applications in Ontario: Every Program Compared Every Ontario business and engineering program with a supplementary application: what each asks, the video and written timings, and all the deadlines.