Sixth Term Examination Paper (STEP); 1x interview
Interview 1: discussion of pre-interview test
Sample interview tests from the Trinity website
Practising questions to time
Don't worry if you can't solve every problem straight away, that is not expected
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: 1
Length of interviews: 1 hour
Online interview: No
I had two interviewers who both actively participated in the discussion with me. We discussed my answers to the questions in the pre-interview test. Correct answers were pretty much ignored, they just said that it was right and then moved on. We then focused on the questions where I got stuck, they gave me hints to allow me to keep going and get to an answer. For one question I did it a slow, difficult way and got stuck halfway through; they helped me finish my solution, then prompted me to think of a nicer way to solve the problem. Where I made outright mistakes they just challenged me on it and helped me realise where I'd gone wrong. Once we'd gone through all the questions that I'd attempted on the test, we looked at some of the ones I thought looked interesting but I hadn't tried. There was no mention of anything from my personal statement and no non-maths questions such as why did I apply to Maths/Trinity. The interviewers were basically trying to help me get to the answer and seeing how quickly I picked up on the hints they were giving, They are not trying to catch you out, quite the opposite.
Had brief
Don't panic if you don't know how to do something or you get something wrong, just admit you're not sure what to do next and they'll help you form an idea of what might work. Just sitting there in silence is the worst thing you can do. I'd advise, just say everything you are thinking so that they understand your thought process. Don't be worried if you can't solve every problem straight away, this is what they want - they want to be able to teach you. Also don't try to cram formulas or anything before the interview, they don't expect you to have memorised a formula book, you can just say you can't remember the formula and they'll help you.