Engineering @ Emmanuel, Cambridge in 2014

Interview format

Thinking Skills Assessment (TSA); 2x interviews

Interview content

Interview 1: maths and physics questions; Interview 2: applied engineering situation

Best preparation

Mock interviews at schol

Final thoughts

Try practice questions on i-want-to-study-engineering.org

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: Thinking Skills Assessment (TSA) - both sections
Number of interviews: 2
Time between interviews: 2 hours
Length of interviews: 30 minutes
Online interview: No

What happened in your interview? How did you feel?

The interviews only asked technical questions, nothing on my personal statement. The first interview was based on more general maths and physics questions. The initial question was basic and then developed until I could go no further with the knowledge I had at the time. I was then given some help to allow me to continue.The second interview was based on a more applied engineering situation that I had chosen before the interview. The questions followed a similar structure.

I was initially very nervous for the first interview and made some mistakes on the very basic starter questions. But once I started talking with the interviewers and saw that it was ok to make mistakes, I relaxed into the interview. Based on these mistakes, I felt the first interview went terribly and I didn’t have a chance at getting in, so went into the second interview telling myself that I didn’t care so felt a bit more relaxed and just wanted to get it done and go home. I now see that nervous mistakes will happen and it’s more about showing your thought process rather than getting the answer straight away.

How did you prepare?

I asked my teachers at school for some mock interviews.

Looking back, what advice would you give to your past self?

Attempting some problems on i-want-to-study-engineering.org could be helpful. What helped to calm me down was to imagine the interview as a mock supervision and it’s just a taster session to see if you learn in a similar way to how Cambridge teaches.