You might have an interview at another college
My interview was based on a very general and wide scope of my subject
Over the phone practice interview
Interviews are rare opportunities to talk about your academic interests!
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.
My interview day was in early December. I arrived at the college fairly late the night before and was shown to accommodation by a current student. The next day itself started with an interview in the morning with the man who would have been my future
The first interview included a test of my Latin reading ability (thinking out loud was encouraged), some questions about my personal statement (specifically talking about the usefulness of classics in studying more modern history) and analysis of an image. I felt slightly anxious (and sometimes a little foolish) during the interview - in retrospect I could have prepared better around my personal statement especially - but the interview went generally well.
The written test was the most relaxed moment of the day - a single passage to translate, which was easier than any of the A-Level exams I'd seen before. I confidently finished it in half the time and checked it thoroughly.
The second interview was a discussion, prompted by a few comments in my personal statement, about the roles of both interpretation generally and translation specifically in the study of classics. I still felt a little out of my depth and challenged by the discussion (especially since it was two-on-one), but I generally enjoyed taking a wider look at the subject and discussing issues of historical bias and the imperfect nature of translation. This was probably the best part of the day and was actually fairly similar (in terms of the way the discussion flowed and went through questions) to many supervisions I've since had.
My school organised a
Above all, I wouldn't worry or overthink about how you feel the interviews went - you can't tell what the interviewers are thinking or how hard they're pushing you compared to everyone else. You definitely need to know your stuff when it comes to what you're already studying (at least, more general things like language, not necessarily 'facts' or specific topics) and have a healthy interest in topics beyond that curriculum, but otherwise I'd say you should treat the interviews as rare opportunities to discuss your academic interest with people who know the subject really well.