Natural Sciences (Physical) @ Pembroke, Cambridge in 2018

Interview content

Interview 1: general motivations, personal statement; Interview 2: drawing graphs, maths problems

Best preparation

Revised A Level syllabus

Advice in hindsight

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Final thoughts

Try not the overthink your performance afterwards

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: can't remember!

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

What happened in your interview? How did you feel?

In each of my interviews, I was only asked two questions although each of them had multiple, relating parts which would push me further each time. In my first interview, the interviewer asked why I was interested in studying Natural Sciences and a little about my personal statement. We also worked through some maths problems involving implicit differentiation. I always tried to explain my thought process out loud. Although I got stuck a few times, the interviewers didn’t mind me asking for hints.

In my second interview, the interviewer launched straight into technical questions, including graph drawing and deriving equations.

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How did you prepare?

I completed the Natural Sciences Admissions Assessment (NSAA) practice papers multiple times: first at the start of my preparation; and then towards to end to check if I'd made progress. I also used the physics and maths questions from similar tests, such as the Engineering Admissions Assessment.

To prepare for my interview, I mainly did practice interviews, which I started asking my physics teacher about even before I was invited to interview. There are no downsides

What advice do you have for future applicants?

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

I would give the following advice: 1) talk through your working out loud to let the interviewer know what you're thinking. 2) Don't be afraid to ask for help if you get stuck. An interviewer doesn't expect you to know everything but will be interested to see how much further you can go with a hint. 3) Try not to overthink the admissions test or interview afterwards.