Natural Sciences (Biological) @ St Catharine's, Cambridge in 2021

Interview format

Natural Sciences Admissions Assessment (NSAA), 2x interviews

Interview content

Interview 1: application, personal statement, design experiment, draw graphs; Interview 2: problem-solving, personal statement, design experiment, draw graphs

Best preparation

review personal statement, practice interview

Test preparation

past papers

Final thoughts

don't worry if you don't know the answer to a question, think out loud, explain your logic

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: Natural Sciences Admissions Assessment (NSAA)
Number of interviews: 2
Time between interviews: 5mins
Length of interviews: ~20-30mins
Online interview: Yes

What happened in your interview? How did you feel?

The first interview started with a question I was not supposed to know the answer to, and I had to work out the answer using my knowledge, context clues and hints from the interviewer. I also had questions about the books that I mentioned in my personal statement. The second interview also had a question that I had to apply my chemistry and biology knowledge to work out the answer and more questions about my personal statement. Both interviews asked me to design an experiment and draw a graph with the predicted results.

How did you prepare for your interviews?

I reviewed anything I had mentioned in my personal statement and did a practice interview with someone who worked in a professional setting.

If you took a test, how did you prepare?

Just did past papers

What advice would you give to future applicants?

Don’t get worried if you don’t know the answer to a question, chances are that you are not supposed to get it straight away, and they want to see your thought process. If you don’t know the answer to a question, speak your thought process (think) out loud, give an answer that you think makes sense and explain your logic behind that answer.