Natural Sciences Admissions Assessment (NSAA); 2x interviews
Personal statement, subject specific questions.
Read magazines & personal statement
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<p>Don't be put off by hard questions and being wrong.</p>
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: Natural Sciences Admissions Assessment (NSAA)
Number of interviews: 2
Skype interview: No
Time between interviews: 4 - 6 hours
Length of first interview: 40 minutes; Length of second interview: 40 minutes
We talked a lot about my personal statement which gave me time to talk about some of the reading and online courses I did.
A lot of the questions asked had graphs involved such as interpreting the data of unknown material.
It’s really easy to practise these - look for diagrams in your textbook and just explain them to yourself so a graph in interview is less daunting :-)
The atmosphere was very welcoming- only two interviewers and they were both so friendly! I felt mostly relaxed but not too relaxed as it is still an interview !!
I think for themes - both interviews were focused on cells.
Read lots of magazines - New Scientist, Nature, Biology Review.
Know your personal statement well and know the books you read well as they could ask you anything about it!
Don’t be put off by hard questions - you are allowed to sit and think for a while in silence.
If the interviewer says you are wrong, try and give a different answer - they want to know you are creative and can approach questions differently.