English @ Clare, Cambridge in 2019

Interview format

English Literature Admissions Test (ELAT); 2x interviews

Interview content

Interview 1: unseen texts, personal statement; Interview 2: unseen texts, submitted work

Best preparation

Practised unseen analysis skills

Test preparation

Studied the mark schemes

Final thoughts

The interviews are so interesting in themselves, so try to enjoy the experience!

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: English Literature Admissions Test (ELAT)
Number of interviews: 2
Time between interviews: 1 hour
Length of interviews: 15 minutes
Online interview: No

What happened in your interview? How did you feel?

The majority of both my interviews were focused on the unseen texts I had been given, I assume because they were trying to replicate what a supervision would be like and how I would work in that sort of situation. Then the last part of the interview, I was asked questions about my submitted work and the books I had written about in my personal statement. They often challenged my ideas and asked me to reshape them based on new information - it was challenging but so interesting.

How did you prepare for your interviews?

I practised my unseen analysis skills, just annotated random pieces of texts and poems. Asked my English literature teacher if I could practice my spoken analysis with her - this wasn’t a “mock interview”, I just spoke through some of my ideas about different texts to get used to analysing aloud. I made A5 sheets of notes on the most important thoughts I had on the texts I had spoken about in my personal statement.

If you took a test, how did you prepare?

I found the mark scheme and studied it. Practised past tests in timed conditions (harder for ELAT as the whole tests are not available online, but I practised two essays). Marked them myself and then tried to improve them with annotations. Practiced unseen texts analysis.

What advice would you give to future applicants?

My advice is to enjoy the experiences while they are happening. It makes the whole thing much more valuable to you as a person and helps stop burn out. Appreciate what you’re doing at the time of doing it, not just after when it’s all over. The interviews for example, are so interesting in themselves - I found it really calmed my nerves to just enjoy the experience of talking on this higher level about something I love.