I had two interviews, both lasting about 20 minutes. The first was for history and the second mostly politics. Both had two interviewers, but with one asking most of the questions and directing the discussion. I had been given a text to read for the history interview prior to coming to Cambridge. I was given a text for the other interview just before and given about 15 minutes to read it.

For the first interview, I had been given a journal article to read about two weeks before and the whole of the interview focused on that text. I found this much more straightforward than I was expecting, as I had been given time to prepare and the interviewers were really friendly.

The second interview started off with a very brief discussion about the text I had just read, but was more general, focusing on topics I had mentioned in my personal statement and other big political questions. The nature of the discussion was very much directed by the examples that I myself brought up, so it was challenging and made me think, but I did not feel out of my depth - I could happily have a go at all of the questions.

I did a mock interview at school and I found this really useful. It was the first time I had ever done anything like an academic interview and so it went really badly as I found it quite intimidating, but it meant I felt more comfortable when I did the real thing. I was also given some really useful feedback.

Other than that, I just read widely before the interview, making sure that I was comfortable discussing everything I had written on my personal statement in depth and that I was up to date with politics generally.

In a discussion-based interview, it is the examples that you bring up that direct the discussion, so make sure that you know at least a little bit about anything you mention. There is no point going for an obscure example that sounds impressive if you can't actually discuss it.