Sixth Term Examination Paper; 2x interviews
Interview 1: Short questions on further maths content; Interview 2: Geometric proof question
Practised problem-solving questions; Mock interview
Worked through past papers
Focus preparation on problem-solving questions (TBO booklet)
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: 20 minutes
Length of interviews: 20 minutes
Online interview: Yes
Both interviews were entirely problem-focused - there were no “why do you want to study maths” style questions.
The first interview was short questions assessing knowledge of further maths content - often followed by “why?”, as well as problems similar in style to the TBO problem booklet, although the interview questions were slightly easier.
The second interview was an extended problem in which I had to prove a geometrical ‘thing’ was not possible. The maths itself was not too complicated - it was more an assessment of how to approach the problem, and how I responded to hints to keep me on course through the problem.
TBO problem solving booklet
Worked through a lot of STEP past questions and papers
Don’t worry about learning maths beyond what you covered in school, the interview will only cover topics you have learnt. But also have a good understanding of why things work which you have covered in maths - e.g. why is e^(ix) = cos(x) + isin(x)? If you haven’t seen that before, don’t worry.
Focus preparation on problem-solving - working on the TBO booklet is a much better use of your time than revising maths notes. Don’t stress about the difficulty of the questions - they are designed to be approachable, they won’t be unlike anything you’ve seen before, and interviewers are happy to give hints, and responding well to a hint is just as good as getting it unaided.