One interview in the morning (pre-reading given ten minutes before) then an interview based on that text and some personal statement questions. One test at lunchtime (1 hr long), followed by another afternoon interview that followed the same format as the first.

Was asked what I thought of the two texts I was given before - asked to give my general opinions before branching out into more technical questions. In my first interview the text was a fictional case study and I was asked some questions about narrative voice before being asked about the texts on my personal statement. My second was on a poem and I was asked some general questions about theme and mood before moving onto to form and structure.

The interviews felt very challenging - the second far more than the first - and the interviewers were very keen to challenge the points that I made or ask me to justify my arguments with theoretical knowledge. As English is so subjective there was also not a case of them telling me if I was right or wrong so I felt like I was blindly stumbling through at points with no idea how I was doing.

Read a book called Beginning Theory by Peter Barry, a really easy to read and accessible way into dense literary theory. I also watched the video The Interview on the Cambridge University YouTube channel, and had a few conversations with my teachers regarding my personal statement/the books I was studying at A-level, which was helpful in allowing me to think critically and out loud about texts.

Interviews aren’t as scary as you think! If you feel you’ve done awfully, don’t worry, and if you feel you’ve done okay also don’t worry - the only people who can objectively assess your performance are the interviewers.