Biomedical Admissions Test; 2x interviews
Interview 1: A-level standard biochem maths questions; Questions on biology and physics; Interview 2: Questions on personal statement
Revised A-Level content
Used Paid-for resources
Talk through your thought process
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: 5 minutes
Length of interviews: 25-30 minutes
Online interview: Yes
Both were online: I had a link to a waiting room that had a bunch of students from the college to talk to beforehand, maybe calm nerves or ask general qs about uni if you wanted (no pressure though). Then I left at my scheduled interview time.
The first interview was more academic- got asked some A-level standard bio chem maths questions (we went through my subjects one by one) with a couple of harder biology questions we weren't supposed to know. they told us to bring a mini whiteboard and marker to the interview to write on to answer questions (e.g. structure of xyz). For the hard questions, I used my knowledge of a topic in bio to slowly break down the question and I think I got to an answer (but don't worry if you don't!). There was also one small throwaway physics question I had NO idea about because we didn't get taught it at GCSE and it was completely fine: the interviewers didn't mind at all; you don't need to know everything!
The second interview was a more typical medicine interview, but more personal than my other medicine interviews. They'd clearly read my personal statement and asked questions about it, and that led to talking about some public health topics etc. It felt a bit like a conversation. I was surprisingly chill in both interviews - maybe because I knew I'd revised topics beforehand, or because I knew the questions were meant to be hard and I could just take it step by step and that was okay. Generally, though, the interviewers were really friendly and the people in the waiting room were too!
Briefly went over everything I'd studied so far at A-level, as they asked for a list of topics beforehand- so they'd be fair game to ask about (that not only helped my interview confidence but also my A-levels). Also asked my teachers for some tough questions I could talk through out loud and really map out my thought process. That's all they wanna see at Oxbridge interviews so I think it really helped me to get the way I think across.
Talk!! Just talk through every little bit of your thought process- before you get to an answer. The interviewers want to see how you think because that's what they'll need to see in