Modern And Medieval Languages @ St John's, Cambridge in 2018

Interview format

MML Admissions Assessment; 2x interviews.

Interview content

Interview 1: personal statement; general discussion of interests (academic and recreational); Interview 2: discussion of unseen passage in chosen language, grammatical problem solving.

Best preparation

Reviewed personal statement

Test preparation

Used practice papers.

Final thoughts

Request feedback from teachers.

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: MML Admissions Assessment
Number of interviews: 2
Time between interviews: 2 hours
Length of interviews: 15-30 minutes
Online interview: No

What happened in your interview? How did you feel?

Interview 1: We talked about my personal statement: what I liked to do in my spare time for langauges and literature; a little bit about my part time job (which was relevant to the course). It was quite relaxed.

Interview 2: I was given a text in French to look at and make comments on. Then, I was asked to read out loud a few sentences from it. Then we discussed the grammar and the content of it. The professor correct me on one part — no big deal!

How did you prepare for your interviews?

Found an analysis online about the books on my personal statement and learned that. Researched the time period and context for each film/book/song I put down on my personal statement. Looked up key dates about the authors I mentioned and looked up the books I was going to study in first year so I knew I could talk a bit about them if they asked me. Read over my personal statement a lot to make sure I could confidently talk about it in the interview. Had a mock interview with a teacher.

The best thing I did was to research an analysis of the books on my personal statement and I also did a little bit of background research on the professors who were going to interview me (one of them was researching about some films so when she mentioned it I developed on it a bit).

If you took a test, how did you prepare?

I did 2-3 practice papers that I found online in timed conditions before my interview. I asked a teacher for feedback to see where I could improve.

What advice would you give to future applicants?

Read over your personal statement a lot of times and make sure you can answer questions about anything you've written down. Do practice papers so you know what you will do in the real thing — ask for feedback from teachers too!