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

Interview format

Natural Sciences Admissions Assessment (NSAA); 3x interviews

Interview content

Interview 1: personal questions; Interview 2: Maths, Chemistry-related questions; Interview 3: Biology-related questions

Best preparation

Past papers, science section of the BMAT

Advice in hindsight

-

Final thoughts

Practice speaking about science and communicating ideas

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: 3

Skype interview: no

Time between interviews: 1 hour

Length of first interview: 20 minutes; Length of second interview: 20 minutes, Length of third interview: 20 minutes<

What happened in your interview? How did you feel?

I was given practical, scientific questions. When I answered, the interviewers probed for more detail and had follow up questions. It wasn't the crazy impossible questions that we stressed about, they were much like exam-style questions and were straightforward. However, the interviewers expected a lot of detail.

The first interview was to relax me. We talked about what I do outside studying, and why I wanted to study science (I don't think it was assessed).

The second interview was Maths and Chemistry-focussed. It focused on mental calculations and tricky problems.

The third interview had a Biology focus. We looked at graphs and the interviewers asked me to explain the trend, and suggest why it was like that.

I felt stressed in the subject-specific interviews because there were two people staring at you and I felt like I forgot a lot of things, but it is just about not cracking under the pressure and working things out slowly, rather than rushing to conclusions and getting stressed.

How did you prepare?

I used the specimen and past paper. I also looked through the specification, to revise things I hadn't studied in a while. Most important - I used the science section of the BMAT (BioMedical Admissions Test) past papers! This was very similar to the multiple-choice style of the NSAA (Natural Sciences Admissions Assessment).

My biology teacher helped a lot, I got interview practice with her once a week. The most important thing to do was practise, because the ‘Cambridge-style' questions promoted online did not reflect what it was really like and just stressed me out.

What advice do you have for future applicants?

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

You need to get used to speaking about science and communicating ideas, which I was awful at when I began. You need to get used to feeling under pressure and having all the eyes in the room on you when you're speaking, and justifying your opinion.