Modern And Medieval Languages @ Corpus Christi, Cambridge in 2019

Interview format

At-interview MML assessment; 2x interviews.

Interview content

Interview 1 (French): Passage discussion, personal statement, French conversation; Interview 2: Text analysis.

Best preparation

Rereading books mentioned in the personal statement, practising French conversation, mock interviews.

Final thoughts

Enjoy the process; practise speaking your second language (and learn more vocabulary).

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: At-interview MML assessment
Number of interviews: 2
Time between interviews: 7 hours
Length of interviews: 20 mins, 50 mins
Online interview: No

What happened in your interview? How did you feel?

My first interview was my French interview where I read a passage, discussed its grammar and meaning, talked about some of my personal statement, and finished off with a conversation in French (in which my French definitely was not as good as I'd have liked it to have been!). I found that I really enjoyed this interview and although I didn't really relax, going in determined to enjoy it meant that there was less pressure from myself to do well, so the academics could probably see more clearly that I really did love my subject.

My second interview consisted of analysing a literary text to work out what the context of the text might have been, as well as discussing my motivations for learning German. This one was less enjoyable (partly because I was so tired) but still very interesting, and I did really get pushed to show off the extent of my analytical skills, although I never came close to a plausible answer!

How did you prepare for your interviews?

I reread a few of the books from my personal statement, practiced speaking French with friends and did a mock interview to see what it would be like. That was probably the most helpful part as, although it wasn't exactly the same, being interviewed by someone I didn't know about my subject made the actual thing seem less unreal.

If you took a test, how did you prepare?

Practice papers

What advice would you give to future applicants?

Try to enjoy the process and to show the people interviewing you or reading your admissions assessment (if it's essay-based) that you do enjoy talking about and analysing your subject, and that you enjoyer deeper discussions around it. Going in determined to enjoy it makes it easier to react well to different questions, so it really is worth it!

You'll want to practice your second language speaking as much as you can before your interview, too, although your language within the interview doesn't necessarily need to be perfect - just as fluent as you can make it. You'd preferably be able to use your second language to explain most things that you might want to say to some extent (i.e. do vocab work too!)