History @ Trinity, Cambridge in 2013

Interview format

College specific history test; 2x interviews

Interview content

Interview 1: personal statement, abstract discussion of history; Interview 2: discussion of written exam

Best preparation

Practise interviews at a nearby school

Test preparation

Practised analysing unseen sources

Final thoughts

The interviewers want to see that you can think and analyse for yourself!

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: College specific history test
Number of interviews: 2
Time between interviews: A few hours
Length of interviews: 20-30 minutes
Online interview: No

What happened in your interview? How did you feel?

I had one interview about my personal statement and essays which I enjoyed. It was basically them giving you a chance to show off and prove you knew your stuff - they asked me one or two questions based on my personal statement but then we talked more abstractly about history.

In my second interview, we talked through the written exam I’d just completed (unseen sources with comprehension questions and an essay). I really enjoyed being able to basically have a nice chat with a professor about my thoughts on the sources - he was excellent in steering discussion and guiding me when I was not quite getting a question right. It was an opportunity to voice my thought process to my answers.

How did you prepare for your interviews?

I had a practise interview at my school and also at a nearby school that was connected - talking with someone unfamiliar was very useful! I tried to practise on unseen sources my teachers gave to me, and made sure I knew everything about my submitted essays and the extra readings in my personal statement. On my way up to Cambridge I read the news for the day in case anything political etc came up (it didn’t!)

If you took a test, how did you prepare?

I practised looking at unseen sources that my teachers were kind enough to prepare for me!

What advice would you give to future applicants?

Be your wonderful and amazing self. They don’t want to know how many clever books you’ve read, but rather that you know how to think and analyse for yourself!