Natural Sciences (Biological) @ St Catharine's, Cambridge in 2014

Interview format

2x interviews

Interview content

Interview 1: discussion of ecology; Interview 2: EPQ

Best preparation

Practising making an attempt at difficult questions

Final thoughts

Focus on applying your knowledge to unfamiliar contexts

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: None
Number of interviews: 2
Time between interviews: None
Length of interviews: 30 minutes
Online interview: No

What happened in your interview? How did you feel?

My first interview was very hands-on ecology based, we discussed the parasitic relationship between some river organisms (this was a totally unfamiliar topic for me) but my interviewer made it feel more like a conversation.

My second interview was less themed and I was able to direct the interview topic around my EPQ.

How did you prepare for your interviews?

At the time I was so nervous about my interview, I had no idea how to prepare! The best bit of advice that I received was just to have a go at every question in the interview, even if I had no clue what the answer was, the interviewers just want you to give it your best shot (they know that some of the questions are a bit unfamiliar) and apply your knowledge to unfamiliar contexts. The only bad/wrong answer is to just say 'I don't know' or not attempt the question, this bit of advice gave me so much more confidence before the interview.

What advice would you give to future applicants?

You don't need to know everything about everything! The interview is all about applying your existing knowledge to unfamiliar contexts; I put so much pressure on myself to know everything about Biology beforehand but this was really unnecessary!