Anglo-Saxon, Norse, And Celtic @ St Catharine's, Cambridge in 2019

Interview format

Arts-Humanities Admissions Assessment; 2x interviews

Interview content

Interview 1: reasons for applying, personal statement; Interview 2: discussion of poetry, analysing an object

Best preparation

Mock interview, practising demonstrating passion for the subject

Test preparation

Past papers, multiple choice questions

Final thoughts

Don't be afraid to make mistakes

Remember this advice isn't official. There is no guarantee it will reflect your experience because university applications can change between years. Check the official Cambridge and Oxford websites for more accurate information on this year's application format and the required tests.

Also, someone else's experience may not reflect your own. Most interviews are more like conversations than tests and like, any conversation, they are quite interactive.

Interview Format

Test taken: Arts-Humanities Admissions Assessment (AHAA)
Number of interviews: 2
Time between interviews: 30 minutes
Length of interviews: 30 minutes
Online interview: No

What happened in your interview? How did you feel?

My first interview was a general interview and I didn't really enjoy it. The interviewer asked me mainly about my personal statement, although I felt it was very very aggressive. I was asked about why I wanted to be doing ASNAC when I said I wanted to go into publishing, I was asked why wasn't I doing English! It was more of a discussion really. It felt very much like the interviewer was trying to push me to get angry even; the atmosphere was very hostile. Although clearly try and keep your cool but definitely argue back.

My second interview, a subject one was much more relaxed, it was just a chance to talk about the subject as a whole. It started off with questions about language (I studied a lot of language at A Level) and they seemed genuinely interested! And then we moved on to talk about favourite poems relating to the subject. I also had to analyse an object which they had provided, talking about what we could make out from the information provided by the object, etc. The interviewers were very helpful and asked questions to push me in the right direction. I even enjoyed that interview, really relaxed and a great opportunity to be passionate about my subject.

How did you prepare for your interviews?

Very little preparation to be honest. I re- read my personal statement and kind of winged it. I should have re-read some of the things on my personal statement though. Looking back, other than that, there wasn't much I could do to prepare, judging by the questions I had. I had one mock interview organised by school but as ASNAC is very niche, it didn't help much; the mock interviewer didn't know what I'd be asked so it was just me being passionate about my subject, so I wasn't really prepped for the interview in terms of what to expect.

If you took a test, how did you prepare?

Past papers mainly, and a fair few of them! Especially the multiple choice questions

What advice would you give to future applicants?

Don't allow the interviewers to get to you, keep your cool as they might try to unsettle you. This only happened in one of my interviews, the other was so different. Relax into them too, you're there to talk about why you want to do your subject, don't worry about being good enough, just be passionate! Don't be afraid to argue back to some of their points, don't be afraid to get things wrong, just be prepared to be corrected. Don't try to judge yourself during it, leave that up to the interviewers, that's their job. Basically, especially for humanities, go in and enjoy talking about your subject, have fun!