Law @ Trinity Hall, Cambridge in 2021

Interview format

Cambridge Law Test, 2x interviews

Interview content

Questions based on fictional statutes

Best preparation

Re-read personal statement; Mock interview with friends

Test preparation

Past papers on the Cambridge website

Final thoughts

Don't panic if you don't know an answer: you aren't expected to know everything

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: Cambridge Law Test (CLT)
Time between interviews: 1 hour
Length of interviews: 25-30 minutes
Online interview: Yes

What happened in your interview? How did you feel?

I was given pre-reading around 15 minutes prior to my interview and the interview was based on the reading that I was tasked to do. Generally, it would start with a fictional statute/piece of legislation and then ask me to apply it to several scenarios.

In the interview, because it was online, my interviewers tried to be as interactive as possible and wrote some of my answers down on the whiteboard space of the shared screen and followed up with questions based on my answers.

Interviewers do challenge your answers, and expect you to explain why your stance would be the same/different based on the new details given in their questions, but overall it was a very enjoyable and intellectually stimulating process for me!

How did you prepare for your interviews?

I prepared by re-reading my personal statement and asking my friends who did law to conduct a mock interview for me based on a short section of pre-reading and asking me questions on understanding the statute provided.

If you took a test, how did you prepare?

Practice papers available on the Cambridge website, although I’m not sure if the CLT is used in the current application cycle

[Editor's note: the CLT was replaced in the application process by the Law National Apptitude Test (LNAT) from 2022]

What advice would you give to future applicants?

Don’t panic, relax in your interview, you aren’t expected to know the answer to everything so don’t feel like it’s the end of the world when you find out that your answer is wrong or if you don’t have an answer - say something like “I’m not very sure because XYZ, but based on my understanding of the material I would say that ABC”