Modern And Medieval Languages @ Sidney Sussex, Cambridge in 2016

Interview format

MML Admissions Assessment; 2x interviews.

Interview content

Interview 1: discussion of unseen passage, personal statement, submitted work. Interview 2: discussion of unseen passage, linguistics-related problem solving.

Best preparation

Did practice papers; practice grammar of target language.

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: Written assessment on day of interview
Number of interviews: 2
Time between interviews: 1 hour.
Length of interviews: 30 mins
Online interview: No

What happened in your interview? How did you feel?

Discussed the text I was given before the interviews to read over and respond to. Then in my French interview we discussed some stuff from my personal statement and the points I had made in the essays I submitted. I was asked more linguistics-related questions in the Spanish interview.

I was asked about my EPQ and what I thought the best way to learn a language was. I felt extremely nervous going into the French interview. I had not slept the night before and as suffering with a flu-like illness. I sneezed and actually got a nosebleed in the French interview. They were very kind and sympathetic about my health and actually let the interview go on a bit longer. The atmosphere was very positive in both situations though.

How did you prepare?

For the written assessment, I did practice papers.

I did quite a lot of reading before going to interview. I also knew that I would be required to write in the target languages on the day of the interview, so I made sure that I was capable of doing that task to a high standard.

I had a feeling that there was a key point of understanding that the interviewers wanted to check that I was capable of reaching on my own before the interview became more informal. I felt like I had passed after reaching this in both cases.