Test taken: English Literature Admissions Test (ELAT)
Number of interviews: 2
Time between interviews: An hour and a half
Length of interviews: 30 minutes
Online interview: No

First interview: some questions based off my personal statement (I think the interviewer asked me a question combining one of the books I'd mentioned in my statement and one I'd mentioned in coursework, so they don't always only deal with your interests in isolation - I had to consider the overlaps in the things I was interested in -- but every interview is different). However the interview mostly focused on analysing the modern poem I was given. The interviewers were friendly and nice. When I left, I hoped the second interview would be a bit more grueling because even though I had to engage intellectually with the questions, I didn't feel pushed as much as I could have been 

Second interview: no personal statement questions. I was more nervous about this one because of what I'd heard about the interviewers (but have learnt not to take this to heart -- they're just people). I was given a prose piece and had to read the whole page aloud. I think I first talked about my ideas and most of the annotations I'd made, then they asked me questions, steering me towards the parts I was unsure about because they were trickier. I did get stuck but every time I just asked if I could have a second to read the piece again/think about it/I said out loud what I did know and then the bits I was struggling with/asked for clarification. I stayed calm and laughed about the bits I got wrong, but at certain point I couldn't go any futher (my brain was a bit tangled up by the end) but so many of the Oxbridge students I know had that experience. If they push you it's because they want to see your potential and how you react to the difficulty, you don't need to do perfectly. Even if you're stuck by the end, they've pushed you to your max. One of the interviewers was a bit of an ice queen but even she smiled wryly when I was chuckling at a mistake I'd made. The other one reassured me I'd done well and I left at least thinking that I tried my best, in that moment, with what I had.

1) Mock interviews were the most useful thing - sometimes people you trust who used to do your subject, a teacher, even an undergrad doing your subject. It is useful to get used to being probed by people, analysing unfamiliar pieces and having to think about questions critically. Ideally your mock interviews should be quite rigorous and intense (even scary is useful) because then the real deal is less daunting and the real interviewers be nicer than what you expect!

2) Practical criticism = analysis of poems/books. Know how to identify basics - can you recognise a sonnet, pick up on the rhyme scheme etc and why the writer might have chosen it. Practice looking at any type of poetry/prose if you can (the piece you get in the interview will probably be previously unknown to you but that's normal, just need to practice using the same skills of analysis).

3) I recommend making mindmaps any particular thing/theme you mentioned on your statement e.g postcolonialism/romanticism/Russian literature/whatever you're into. Add almost all the ideas/your opinions you can think of or articles/books you've read about. This isn't to get you to memorise anything that you spit out again during interview (interviewers can probably tell when you're doing this if the answer doesn't match the question they asked you) but it's helpful having a schema of things you can refer to (e.g if they ask you about postcolonialism your mind is less likely to go blank if you remember that you wrote the name of a particular book/article/idea/essay/podcast that's linked to it on the mindmap).

ELAT past papers found online and ideally marked by a teacher. Generally your marks go up as you practice then plateau.

I would have put less pressure on myself the first time round. Oxbridge is not the be all and end all. If it's not meant to be but you decide you still really want it, you can take a productive year out and re-apply -- not expecting to get in, but just so you won't have any regrets (or else see rejection as re-direction and go somewhere else you love where there's less work lol). Prepare, but don't have any regrets beyond that point. You can never tell how interviews go (some people think they got in and they didn't, others thing they botched it and they still get an offer), don't even try to guess whether you did (that's not your job), just try your best and leave it there. Interviewers are used to seeing nervous people, try to see it as an opportunity to have an interesting conversation with some smart people who are interested in the same subject that you love!