English @ Newnham, Cambridge in 2021

Interview format

English Literature Admissions Test; 2x interviews

Interview content

Both interviews: Reading and analysing poems; possibility of personal statement questions

Best preparation

Went over personal statement; revised; practised analysis; used other people's testimonies

Test preparation

Flashcards; times past papers; practised annotation and analysis

Final thoughts

Treat the interview like a conversation: say what you're thinking and take on feedback. Being nervous is completely normal!

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: 5 minutes
Length of interviews: 20 minutes
Online interview: Yes

What happened in your interview? How did you feel?

In both interviews I was given unseen extracts from poems, which I had 15 minutes to look over and write short notes. After that I was questioned about the poems by two interviewers (usually with one leading and asking the questions).

They asked me questions about the content of the poems and my interpretations of certain words/ phrases. They then asked me some more abstract questions loosely based off what I read.

Depending on the interviewers, they may or may not ask you about your personal statement, for instance about certain texts that you mention, which may then lead to more broader questions about a genre or literary movement or philosophical line of thought etc.

How did you prepare for your interviews?

I applied and got into two access programmes for state school children applying for Cambridge, which provided me with resources from previous English students at Cambridge who had been through the interviewing process.

I also found it helpful to look on sites such as the Student Room to see what previous students had written about their interview experience.

[Editor's note: Online forums can be great spaces to find advice and first-hand knowledge, but remember that they may not always be the most trustworthy source of information. Take what you read with a pinch of salt.]

I revised in a similar way to how I had done for the ELAT, learning literary terminology flashcards and practising my analysis of unseen poems and texts through past papers. I also made sure to go over the texts I had mentioned in my personal statement to refresh my knowledge of them (thinking about their contents, the specific things that interested me about them, their genres/ literary devices and motifs etc.).

If you took a test, how did you prepare?

Flashcards with critical terminology (e.g. poetic/ literary devices), timed past papers from online, practicing annotating and analysing unseen poems and prose extracts (doing at least one of these a day)

What advice would you give to future applicants?

Don't be shy to say what you think something may mean, even if you are wrong. Treat the interview like a conversation, or an attempt to figure something out collaboratively, rather than as a test. Making a point will always be better than saying nothing at all.

Listen carefully to what the interviewers ask and try to answer in a way that opens up to more lines of questioning, rather than shutting that down. Show that you are willing to take what the interviewers suggest on board, and incorporate what they are hinting towards in your response.

No matter how much preparation you do, there's no doubt that you will be nervous in the interview and will probably not perform as well as you know you could do, but that is okay! Everyone will be in the same boat, what's important is that you put yourself out there and do what you can to the best of your ability.