History Admissions Assessment (HAA); 2x interviews
Interview 1: defining history and politics, submitted work; Interview 2: demonstrating specific historical knowledge
Reading around the topic of submitted essays
Don't adopt a false 'know-it-all' persona
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.
Test taken:
Number of interviews: 2
Time between interviews: 2 hours
Length of interviews: 1 hour
Online interview: No
In the first we spoke about how you would define history and politics and in what ways the two subjects are different. We also discussed an essay I submitted about Harold Wilson's government.
The second was harder. I'd studied American politics rather than American history and the American history fellow wanted me to demonstrate specific knowledge and recite dates of important events. We also talked about historical reenactment. All my interviewers were lovely and the history fellows gave me biscuits.
Reading articles, making up questions and writing out answers and talking about what you wrote with other students. Read around the subject of the essays you submitted and anything in your personal statement, but if you aren't genuinely interested in something then don't include it in your personal statement to sound impressive. Just genuinely tell them about yourself!
Make sure to be yourself, you don't need to put on a 'know-it-all' persona to impress them. If you make a mistake then you can reconsider and correct yourself rather than ploughing on with the wrong answer, as this shows them that they'll be able to teach you.