Natural Sciences Admissions Assessment (NSAA); 2x interviews
Interview 1: discussion of a fossil, maths questions; Interview 2: biology and chemistry questions
Kept up to date with science news
Practise questions
Know your A Level content really well
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.
Test taken:
Number of interviews: 2
Time between interviews: 45 mins
Length of interviews: 20 mins
Online interview: No
My personal statement was not discussed. Both interviews started with then asking me to talk about me/my love of science for 1 minute (just to get me to relax a bit I think). The first interview was a discussion about a fossil that was on the table, with some maths questions at the end.
The second interview was half biology and half chemistry (mostly applied A-level knowledge). All 4 of my interviewers were very nice and didn’t make me feel stressed / uncomfortable. After the first few questions I relaxed into it and it wasn’t so bad. 20 mins is very short so the interviews didn’t feel long at all.
I went over my Y12 notes and made sure I knew everything because that is expected knowledge that students should know. I kept up to date with science in the news, just in case I was asked anything about that (I wasn’t). I then asked my teachers at school to give me
I bought the
Make sure you know your A level stuff really well. They don’t expect you to know everything about your subject, but they do expect you to know the A-level stuff.