Natural Sciences (Physical) @ Peterhouse, Cambridge in 2015

Interview format

2x interviews; 1x test (30 mins)

Interview content

First interview: discussed test, trigonometry, calculus; Second interview: deriving formulae, geometry

Best preparation

Isaac Physics; talking/practicing with friends

Final thoughts

No

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

My interview was in mid December. I had two interviews, at 10am and 5pm which I knew about, and a 30 minute test that I wasn't aware of. I arrived at 9:45am and was taken to my test, then I was walked straight to my first interview upon finishing the test. I left Peterhouse and walked around town all day with my dad (which was grim and stressful!) before returning at 4:45pm for my second interview.

What happened in your interview? How did you feel?

In the first interview they talked about some of the longer questions from the test, and did some trigonometry and calculus using first principles. This interview felt really scary and stifling and my brain completely stopped working, I felt it had gone really awfully.

The second interview was much better. I hadn't done chemistry A-Level and I was told they had to adjust the interview for me based more on materials science and mathematics. I had to derive some formulae, which was a nice starter question as it was quite do-able (much better than what I was asked in the first interview), I was then asked about geometry and considering 3 dimensional objects in a mathematical sense.

How did you prepare?

Isaac physics (https://isaacphysics.org/) was good, and talking to some of my friends at school and testing each other on harder physics/maths questions.

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

Not really!