Chemistry @ St Catherine's, Oxford in 2017

Interview format

2x 25 min interviews; same day

Interview content

Chemistry questions (after example)

Best preparation

Practice papers; find trends in answers

Final thoughts

Relax; think through questions

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: TSA

Number of interviews: 2

Skype interview: No

Interview spread: all in one day

Length of interview: 25 minutes

What happened in your interview? How did you feel?

The interviewers were nice but I was very nervous so I answered questions quickly, giving the wrong answer, which is definitely not the way to go about it. They didn't ask me anything about my personal statement, why I wanted to do chemistry, or anything about me really. They just asked chemistry related questions.

It was very stressful but you have to try and take time to think and say something useful/related to the answer, rather than just rush to give an answer that you haven't thought about. We did some physical chemistry, some organic and some inorganic, and then some maths. Some of it was stuff we had covered in A Level but a lot of it wasn't. They walk you through an example and you give ideas as to the answer for a similar question.

How did you prepare?

I did all the past papers and tried to find trends in the answers. It was dull but practice definitely helps and I did quite well in the test. It's definitely something you can prepare for.

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

Nerves can easily get the better of you, so just try to relax and to think thoroughly about the questions rather than to rush to give an answer which you haven't really thought about