Modern And Medieval Languages @ Christ's, Cambridge in 2017

Interview format

2x interviews (20-30 minutes long); 1x written exam (1hr long)

Interview content

Spanish interview: pre-read text; personal statement. French interview: unseen text; tenses and vocabulary; submitted work

Best preparation

Reread books in personal statement; grammar book work; past papers for the written test; MML interviews on

Final thoughts

Don't overanalyse how the interview went; embarassing moment in French interview.

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

I went straight to the exam room specified on my email. I took a 1 hour written exam in the morning, in a room with roughly 20 other candidates, then two 20-30 minute interviews in the afternoon (one for each language). There were 2 interviewers in each interview.

What happened in your interview? How did you feel?

In Spanish we discussed a text I read 10 minutes before the interview and my thoughts on it. We went on to discuss migration, and then one of the books I had mentioned in my personal statement. It’s strange because I didn’t find the questions difficult, however I thought the interview went badly because I felt my answers weren’t strong enough/what they were looking for. For French I read and analysed an unseen text in the interview, and we discussed tenses and vocabulary. We finished by discussing one of my submitted works. I felt this interview, whilst more challenging, went better because I felt more confident in my responses.

How did you prepare?

I reread all the books mentioned in my personal statement, did some more grammar book work, and completed as many of the available past papers for the written test that I could. I also watched the available MML interviews on YouTube.

I applied in my gap year so didn’t do any mock interviews or get advice from teachers but in a way I’m glad about this - I feel like too much advice or preparation can make you conform too much into a ‘model interviewee’ that can actually be detrimental to the interview performance.

Looking back, what advice would you give to your past self?

I know everyone says this, but I 110% believed I had failed, I spent my entire Christmas reading up lots of my 2nd choice (Southampton) and convicing myself it was where I wanted to go because I was that sure I had failed. Don’t take too much away from how you thought you did in the interview, just relax as much as you can while you’re in it and picture their questions as ways of pushing your existing knowledge, not ways of trying to trip you up.

Saying this, once in my French interview I did feel slightly embarrassed, as my stressed brain forgot the meaning of ‘narcosis’, as my interviewer asked me whether the protagonist was a sufferer, and I decided to swallow my pride and check to avoid giving a completely wrong answer. The interviewer then went on to tell me it meant whether the protagonist was ‘narcotic’ so that was great haha, but apart from that all went fairly smooth!