Language Aptitude Test (interview format); 3x interviews
Interview 1: personal statement, discussion of recently-discovered works; Interview 2: general personal questions; Interview 3: discussion of an artifact and text. The Language Aptitude Test was on Latin.
Mock interviews; reading over and delving deeper into readings mentioned in your personal statement.
Be open-minded to the interviewer's input; find something you are passionate about with regards to Classics and demonstrate that passion.
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.
Test taken: Language Aptitude Test (interview format).
Number of interviews: 3
Time between interviews: 30 minutes to an hour
Length of interviews: 15-30 mins
Online interview: No
In my first interview, we started talking about my views on the theatre that I had written about in my personal statement. The interviewer picked up one of the hooks (a statement or a question that was inconclusive in order to give a point of interest) that I had intentionally written in. This was the most enjoyable as it allowed me to talk about something I was passionate about with an interviewer who was also incredibly interested in Greek Theatre in performance. We then moved onto some recently discovered Sappho - this task was pushing my deductive reasoning, as the interviewer pushed me to consider how we could authenticate such a find. This wasn’t too hard, as it was largely common sense and he helped guide me.
My second interview was a general interview with someone outside of my subject at my college. It focused on my extra-curricular activities, study skills, and how I maintained a work/life balance. This was perhaps the most confusing interview as I wasn’t sure what exactly the interviewer was getting at sometimes, but I found it helpful to just take the questions as they came rather than second guess myself as to the interviewer’s motives. There was also some brief discussion of my personal statement, but as he was not a subject specialist, this did not last too long.
My third interview was with an interviewer from a different college. He presented me with a picture of a coin and an extract from the historian Cassius Dio. I believe we started with analysing the coin, where he asked me to identify what the writing on it could mean, what were the possible symbols, who the head could be. I felt very lost at times but he was very calm and whenever he could see me getting confused/a bit frustrated with myself, he would switch to the text. The text was about a Roman triumph, and I was asked to respond to what the author and what the triumph was trying to put across to their respective audiences. Again, this was difficult, but he didn’t push me too hard, and certainly helped me along the way.
Finally, although not an official interview, there is a Language Aptitude Test, which took place on the day after my interviews. This was the section I felt least confident on before and after it. We were given some reading about how grammar is assigned to languages with artificial labels, however because I had Latin at GCSE in the test itself, I was tested on that. My biggest take away from it what that they aren’t looking for the amount you know, but more how you tackle the things you don’t know. It was certainly hard returning to a language after almost two years and I wish I had prepped it more, but the interviewer was really kind and supportive and I could not fault her at all.
Reading over and delving deeper into sections of my personal statement was also great - I had included a lot of literature so I spent some time reading around the works, using textbooks and articles on sites like JSTOR. This helped me understand historical context more as someone who hadn’t done Classical Civilisation before, as well as helping me form my own opinions with some evidence for them.
The practice interviews and the reading together really helped me work out how to express myself as well as how I felt about the topic mentioned in the statement.
Do not stress about being the most knowledgeable on every single tiny subject when applying for the four-year course because everyone is coming at it with totally different levels of prior experience in Classics. Instead, focus on being open minded, and make sure you can listen effectively to an interviewer.
Also, find something you are really passionate about and cling to that. You will eventually be required to have some knowledge in every area of Classics but at this early stage, the passion you have, even if its just for one or two things, is your most valuable asset and is the thing most likely to get you in.