Biochemistry @ Hertford, Oxford in 2018

Interview format

2x 30 min interviews, 1 day apart

Interview content

Interview 1: article given beforehand, data analysis; Interview 2: questions on information given in interview

Best preparation

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Advice in hindsight

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Final thoughts

Review A-level content; try to get some sleep; eat breakfast!

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

Number of interviews: 2

Skype interview: No

Time between each interview: 1 day

Length of interviews: 30 minutes each

What happened in your interview? How did you feel?

1st interview: I was given 30 minutes to read an article and highlight the top 5 things in it. For the interview, I was asked a couple of questions on the article and why I chose those parts of it. I was given 2-3 sheets of data and asked to answer questions from the information given to me.

2nd interview: Similar to first, without the article pre-reading. Both had a mix of biology and chemistry to A-Level standard, don’t worry if you haven’t covered a topic for Year 2 content yet - just let them know and they’ll be fine with it.

How did you prepare?

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What advice do you have for future applicants?

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

Our school literally did 2 one hour practice interviews that we did amongst us students in our chemistry classes. The best thing I did, to be honest, was just to make sure I knew my A-Level content relatively well and sleep the night before. Remember it’s not really so much how much you know but what you can do with the info given to you, so try and get some sleep and make sure you eat breakfast so you’re not a zombie!