Medicine @ King's, Cambridge in 2016

Interview format

Biomedical Admissions Test; 3x Interviews.

Interview content

Interview 1: questions about the brain; Interview 2: short science questions; Interview 3: chemistry and experiment-based questions.

Best preparation

Do BMAT and TSA practice papers.

Final thoughts

Don't get too nervous or intimidated!

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: Biomedical Admissions Test (BMAT)
Number of interviews: 3
Time between interviews: 30 minutes to an hour.
Length of interviews: 20 minutes
Online interview: No

What happened in your interview? How did you feel?

Interview 1: We started with some settling in questions (why I wanted to do medicine etc.), and I was then asked questions about the brain. I was very nervous and it was set up as a bad cop good cop routine with the person asking questions being harsh and the other smiling and making me feel more comfortable.

Interview 2: There were short science questions for which I needed to draw diagrams. The first interviewer asked the questions and the second interviewer just sat and watched. I was probably most relaxed in this interview.

Interview 3: The first interviewer just sat and watched and the second interviewer asked chemistry and experiment-based questions.

How did you prepare?

I did BMAT practice papers (I used books as, unlike the UCAT, the BMAT exam is on paper). I also did some TSA papers as they were similar in terms of the thought process required for the logic puzzle questions. I didn't really prepare for the interview and looking back this was a good thing as, unlike most medicine interviews, the interview at Cambridge is pretty impossible to prepare for.

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

The main thing is to not get too nervous or intimidated before and during the interview.