I took an academic test, lasting about 1.5hrs I think. This was in a room in the college library with two other candidates; there were many sessions throughout the day so you could do one that didn't clash with your interviews. I was told at some point (my interview letter?) that your test result wouldn't bring you down, but would only make a difference if there was something good in it - even just one well structured essay, or one juicy phrase.

I then had two interviews of about 20 mins, each with around 10 mins beforehand to look at unseen passage(s). There were two academics at each interview. Roughly six weeks in advance I'd submitted a list of about 10 texts that I was prepared to talk about.

For my first interview I was given 5-10 minutes to look at the verse prologue of a play (about 30-40 lines), which was spoken by a woman and about women's place in theatre. I was then fetched and sat down in a room in front of two relaxed and smiley academics. I was dead scared. One of them asked me questions about the unseen piece; it wasn't too stretching and seemed to go reasonable well - though neither gave me any indication of how I was doing. He asked me to talk him through the piece, then asked a couple of specific questions.

Then the second academic (who until now had been silent) started asking me about my prepared texts. In fact she only asked about King Lear. In contrast to the gentle questions I'd been asked by the first guy, these ones were tough. On my personal statement, I'd talked about a comparative essay I'd written about Lear and the birthday party. I tripped up a lot in this discussion. I was very flustered, made clear that I'd never been taught the play at school, and still tried to defend a point even when they gave me information that contradicted my argument. We spoke a bit about my enjoyment of varying ends to the play which was interesting.

Before the second interview I was given 10/15 minutes to look at a poem and a prose piece. There was a question at the top of the page asking you to think about setting. The passages were much more difficult than the earlier one, but in the interview I was given lots of suggestions and direction so I never felt that I was floundering, even though I didn't understand everything.

One academic then asked me about a short story which I'd mentioned in passing on my PS, but hadn't revised. I said that I didn't remember it perfectly, she said that's okay, and I had a go at answering her questions.

Then I was asked about another comparative essay I'd written (I'd sent them this because they needed a sample of my work; I'm fairly sure they hadn't read it.) I explained what the actual texts were about and went through examples and points from my essay. After this the same academic asked me about a character's relationship with other characters and the degree of agency she had in the text, and whether she was used well. I also talked about the scientific context (somehow).

Before I left the other academic asked me about the British Sign Language production of A Midsummer Night's Dream I'd mentioned on my statement, and we spoke about whether it might have been possible for other plays. I started to say that I wasn't sure but didn't think so, she interrupted me saying it was just an idea. This clearly wasn't a test, just something that had got her excited :) I was thanked, we shook hands (again?) and I left.

Going to a September open day at the college I applied to was unbelievably helpful, because you get to meet the people who are going to interview you.

For preparing my texts, I found the Macmillan Casebook series really useful - they're anthologies of criticism that I borrowed from a library.

My school offered after-school classes on a text which was really helpful for the second interview.

It's okay to be scared. Before and in the first interview, I was really nervous!