Test taken: MML Admissions Written Test
Number of interviews: 2
Time between interviews: 1 hour
Length of interviews: 20 minutes
Online interview: No

My interviews generally started with a discussion about one of the books I'd referenced in my personal statement, and both interviewers gave me the opportunity to explain my thoughts on a few of the themes that I had explored. For my A-level language interview, we went through an unseen poem in my A-level language which I was given 20 minutes before the interview to evaluate. We only discussed the poem for about 2-3 minutes in my A-level language, and I think they were more interested in my ideas than my actual language skills. For my ab initio Spanish interview, I was given 20 minutes to look over a poem in Spanish, but the general discussion about the poem was in English; not in the language I was choosing to pick up in Cambridge. I did eventually relax into my interview after initially feeling a bit nervous. Both of my interviews were held in the professors' offices which were quite cosy, with sofas to sit on and coffee tables etc. The interviewers were polite and did not try to interrupt me or ask me any trick questions. They don't ask you to shake their hands as they're aware that most students are nervous. The impression that I got of the interviewers was that they asked slightly more challenging questions as the interview progressed, but only in order to try to bring out the best in me and to help me to come up with more well-developed answers. Please note: if you're planning on studying a language at ab initio, think about exactly why you're interested in studying it, eg. aspects of culture, literature, or the language which you have heard/read about and want to study in further detail. Avoid overly generic responses to questions about your interest in the language such as 'I think Spanish culture is so interesting' or 'I want to study Italian as I love Italian food' as they can come across as rather cliched and uninteresting to the interviewers.

I went over my personal statement to ensure that I had read all the books and the articles that I put in my UCAS personal statement, knowing that they could ask me for my opinion or general impression of any one of them. I did a few quick mindmaps of different ideas included in the books that I referenced in my personal statement (eg. I was interested in a feminist reading of a novel by Albert Camus, so had a little think about the representation of women and their subjugation in the novel). This process didn't take too long but I really enjoyed it and it got my brain thinking of ideas. I spoke to my language teacher for advice and to my French assistant. Both were very helpful in terms of explaining some French grammar which I didn't understand and giving some general encouragement but were not familiar with the format of the interviews. I spoke to my school's Oxbridge coordinator for some advice and she arranged a mock interview with each of us. Even though you're not likely to be asked the same questions in a mock interview as you may be in your actual interviews, it is still worth asking your school/college if a member of teaching staff can interview you just so you get used to being in that situation and it's less of a shock on the day.

I looked at a few of the practice papers available online and tried to think about what sort of ideas the questions were generally looking for me to reference. I went over some grammar for the written part of the test which was in my post-A level foreign language in order to avoid making avoidable, basic errors.

Have confidence in your own abilities, don't be afraid to ask for support from your school/teachers, don't trust all the horror stories you hear about Oxford/Cambridge in the news as there are lovely students and amazing lecturers in both universities. The best advice is to make sure you go into the interview confident that you can talk about anything you mentioned on your personal statement, and that you feel able to project your enthusiasm about your subject to the other people in the room, as enthusiasm is something which the interviewers take into account along with other criteria such as A-level and admissions tests grades. Also make sure you have a look at the specimen papers for the admissions tests online before you arrive if your test is at-interview, as it is good to know what to expect before you arrive!