History And Politics @ Emmanuel, Cambridge in 2021

Interview format

History Admissions Assessment, 2x interviews

Interview content

Interview: Analysing a source 7 making links to own knowledge

Best preparation

Practiced talking through ideas and went over personal statement

Test preparation

Used A-level sources to practice HAA-style questions

Final thoughts

Be willing to make mistakes and offer educated guesses

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: History Admissions Assessment (HAA)
Number of interviews: 2
Time between interviews: 1 hour (including 30 minutes pre-reading time)
Length of interviews: 20 minutes
Online interview: Yes

What happened in your interview? How did you feel?

History: I had a random source to read and analyse 30 mins before the interview with no provenance (date, country, purpose etc) and then I was asked questions about its provenance, using clues in the text to work out where, who and when it was from.

We then discussed the ideas in it and how that could be linked to my own knowledge of the period. My interviewers were very relaxed and allowed me to think through my answers, as well as adapt them given new info.

How did you prepare for your interviews?

The best thing I did to prep was practice talking through unfamiliar ideas and coming up with responses. As well as getting as many practice interviews as I could with my teachers, friends and parents, I tried to participate more in class to practice giving spoken responses to challenging questions.

I also read around my personal statement so that I could develop on my ideas if they asked me about anything I had mentioned.

If you took a test, how did you prepare?

My prep was mainly just doing source work from different A-Level textbooks; I would look at a source from a period I hadn't studied and try and write about the provenance, what it told me about the period etc.

The AQA A Level Paper 2 past papers were especially helpful as they give you 3 sources on a common topic so I used them as past papers, but making up a general question like the Cambridge examples.

I probably did about 5 of these before the test - 3 untimed, 1 loosely timed and one strictly timed. l asked my teachers to mark them and give feedback.

What advice would you give to future applicants?

I think the most important thing is being willing to make mistakes - all the interviewers are looking for at this stage is the ability to think on your feet and make connections.

Interviews are literally the same as supervisions, and in both being able to make an educated guess and then adapt your answer based on new info is crucial. They can't mark you on what you were thinking!