History Admissions Assessment (HAA); 2x interviews
Interview 1: source sheet; Interview 2: personal statement
Picked out things from personal statement which might be asked about
Practice papers
It's okay to say you don't know an answer.
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: 20 minutes
Online interview: No
There was a source sheet for one of my interviews while the other was more personal statement based. There were a few questions in each interview where it seemed a specific answer was wanted and it took me a while to get them - but the interviewers helped guide me down the right path. They didn’t ask me about any of the books I had mentioned in my personal statement, instead asking about experiences (like volunteering or a trip to Berlin).
I went through my personal statement and picked out as many possible things the interviewers might ask me about. This included books and work experience. I also highlighted certain words I had chosen which they might find interesting or ask me why I had used such language. I also prepared for more general questions, as advised by my sixth form teachers, such as ‘why learn history’, ‘who is history for’ or ‘who writes history’.
Practice papers
Really pick apart your personal statement, and make sure there aren’t any words that could be misunderstood because it will probably be brought up! Don’t worry too much about the books you mention, but have decent knowledge of them in case. It’s also okay to say you don’t know an answer.