Natural Sciences (Biological) @ Sidney Sussex, Cambridge in 2017

Interview format

2x inteviews (2 inteviewers each)

Interview content

Discussion based around an example of unfamiliar plant; some maths questions; other A-Level standard questions

Best preparation

Practice interviews with unknown people

Final thoughts

Don't forget to revise chemistry and maths too!

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

2 Interviews each with 2 interviewers who took it in turns to ask questions.

What happened in your interview? How did you feel?

I was shown a plant with some unusual features and asked about causes of them / the advantage to the plant. Later questions involved something about designing experiments (we related this to the plant from before). Discussed topic on my personal statement. I had maths question about drawing the graph of a function. I didn’t get the first question so they gave me a new one. They asked what I wanted to talk about and then extended questions from there (mostly A-level).

How did you prepare?

Practise interviews with unknown people. Revise everything you have covered in lessons.

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

Don’t forget to revise all subjects chemistry and maths, I focused too much on biology.