2x initial interviews (30mins prep reading a text before each) with 1 interviewer in each; 2x pool interviews, 1 general, 1 language specific.
Discussion of prepared text focused on themes, word meanings, grammar; translation, personal statement, personal reading, Russian grammar.
Student Room
No.
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.
For the first set of interviews I had two at Robinson, one German one Russian. For each interview I had 30 minute preparation time beforehand to read a text which we then discussed in the interview. There was one interviewer each time. I then had interviews, after being pooled, at Fitzwilliam. There was one general interview and one focused on languages. There was only small chat in German in the languages interview.
In the interviews we discussed the themes of the text I had been given to prepare, zooming in on the meaning of particular words and grammatical categories. We also discussed translation, my personal statement, things that I had already read, and my understanding of Russian grammar.
Nope