Natural Sciences (Biological) @ Pembroke, Cambridge in 2018

Interview format

NSAA; 2x interviews

Interview content

Interview 1: A level style content; Interview 2: stretched further

Best preparation

Practice papers

Advice in hindsight

-

Final thoughts

Go over A level content

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

Skype interview: no

Time between interviews: about 3 hours 15 minutes

Length of first interview: 30 minutes; Length of second interview: 30 minutes

What happened in your interview? How did you feel?

The first interview began with some questions about where I went to school and if there were issues in teaching - presumably to also help calm people down, me included. As the interview progressed I became much more relaxed, as I focussed more on their questions and less on my nerves. By the second interview, I felt much better.

The style of questioning was largely based on some sort of stimulus, such as a micrograph or a plotted graph, before I was questioned on related topics - overall there were about three major themes in each interview. In both interviews I was also asked about a particular idea from books I mentioned in my SAQ and personal statement, as well as a presentation I did at school. While for the first interview I felt I could answer most of the questions based on my knowledge at A-Level, the second interview definitely stretched me further. Though I did struggle, making sure to speak my thinking aloud meant the interviewers could understand my logic and thought processes, which is more important than if the answer is right or not.

How did you prepare?

I used all the practice papers available on the website, and read through the specification carefully to make sure I knew everything. BMAT section 2 questions are useful to help practice for the multiple choice questions - they are easier, but the style is the same.

What advice do you have for future applicants?

Looking back, what advice would you give to your past self?

Asking teachers if they can conduct a mock interview can be really useful - even if it's just a chat about something beyond the specification, as long as you're stretched a little further it can be very beneficial. It also made me more reassured, knowing I could handle being in an interview-like setting. Going over A-Level content and the extra things mentioned in your personal statement is also useful in preventing you being caught unawares.

This piece of advice has been incredibly overdone but it is so important - speak your thoughts out loud! Interviewers are genuinely more interested in how you think than what you know.