Maths @ King's, Cambridge in 2018

Interview format

Sixth Term Examination Paper; 2x interviews

Interview content

Interview 1: discussed test; Interview 2: subject questions

Best preparation

Doing practice questions

Advice in hindsight

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Final thoughts

Try to remember to write your name!

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: Sixth Term Examination Paper (STEP)

Number of interviews: 2

Skype interview: no

Time between interviews: about 2 hours

Length of first interview: 30 minutes; Length of second interview: 30 minutes

What happened in your interview? How did you feel?

My first interview was conducted immediately after my exam that I took (this was not STEP). We went over the questions I had struggled with in the test.

The interviewers tried to put me at ease, but it is a tense situation. I found it quite difficult to understand the interviewer's accent. I also attempted a question in a topic I had not yet studied, so I struggled more than I should have. These together caused my first interview to be very stressful, and I didn't feel very confident in how it had gone.

My second interview was much more comfortable. I was asked new questions, not ones that I had previously struggled with in the tests so I found them more approachable. This in turn put me at ease, and I found this interview much more enjoyable.

How did you prepare?

For a maths application, it's a good idea to do lots of practice questions, because it helps to get used to thinking creatively, and maths A-level isn't very good at preparing you for this. The pre-interview test has no publicly available past papers as far as I found, as they rather you come in unprepared to measure raw ability. I recommend practicing with STEP I papers as they are similar in difficulty.

What advice do you have for future applicants?

Looking back, what advice would you give to your past self?

Lastly, write your name on the paper! I did not, and it was rather embarrassing in my first interview. Don't worry though, it's not the end of the world if you do forget, and the interviewers won't judge you for it!