Natural Sciences Admissions Assessment (NSAA); 2x interviews.
Physics interview: subject-related problems, personal statement; Chemistry interview: subject-related problems and discussion.
Mock interviews, revision of Year 12 and 13 subjects.
Past questions from ENGAA, MAT, and Physics/Chemistry Olympiads.
Think out loud and write down important lines of working; describe your initial thoughts if you feel stuck.
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: about 30 minutes
Length of interviews: 20 to 25 minutes
Online interview: No
I had 2 interviews for physical natural sciences. One for chemistry and one for physics.
In the physics one, I was asked about some problems for most of the time and was given pen and paper to write on to do this (I brought my own pen as it made me feel a bit more relaxed) and then talked for 5 minutes about something I had mentioned on my personal statement. This really threw me off as I had been told by a lot of people that they never ask about your personal statement in science interviews. There was also a student (I think PhD) sitting in on the interview - purely to learn about the interview process - they are not assessing you but she was sitting behind me so I quickly forgot about her once the interview got under way.
In my chemistry interview, there were 2 interviewers which was quite uncomfortable as I had not had any experience with this. They sat at 90 degrees to me so I couldn't really talk to both of them at the same time which felt like something I should have done. Once again, I was given some problems to work through and also a bit of discussion about a molecule's properties, with nothing about my personal statement.
I was lucky to enough to do some
I also revised topics that I studied in year 12 as well as the topics that I had studied in year 13 (up until the interview obviously) - these are ones you mention in the
My advice is try to do as many practice interviews as possible, especially with people you have never met (rather than teachers). Even other teachers in the department that have never taught you would be good.
Also, I found doing the Physics and Chemistry Olympiads very good as that is the style of question you get although the actual NSAA test is mostly based on A Level content (but made hard), whereas the Olympiads test you on stuff that they tell you about in the papers, which makes them a lot harder than NSAA.
For science interviews, give yourself 10 seconds before blurting out something that's incorrect. Try to always say out loud your thought process and WRITE DOWN stuff. Don't miss out important lines of working trying to go quicker than is expected and then make a silly mistake.
Try to stay as relaxed as possible (I realise this is hard) as your thoughts will be clearer and better if you are. Also, if you are really stuck then don't be afraid to ask for help but as you do, say what you're thinking e.g. "My initial thoughts are this but I'm not sure about how this thing will affect the problem".