3 x 30 min interviews, 5 hours apart
Interview 1: discussed a historical source; Interview 2: discussed personal statement and an archaeological source; Interview 3: discussed an article about Roman history, archaeological sources and personal statement
Read academic articles; reread personal statement; practised answering questions about sources
Try to explain your thought processes and don't panic
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.
Test taken: None
Number of interviews: 3
Time between interviews: About 5 hours
Length of interviews: 30 minutes
Online interview: Yes
1st interview: this was an ancient history focused interview and we mainly looked at one written source about the Olympic Games. I wasn’t given the source before hand, but was shown it during the interview. The kind of things we discussed were what this could tell us about how Greece interacted with the wider ancient world. We spent time looking at the words of the source, including looking at the specific names that were listed.
2nd interview: this was an archaeology focused interview and they opened by asking me a question on my personal statement. They then showed me a physical source which was from a building. We spent most of the interview looking at who was in the source and what was happening in the image. We then went on to talk about states and how tolerant cultures can be.
3rd interview: this was an interview at a different college and was a joint archaeology and ancient history interview. We looked at an academic journal which discussed an aspect of Roman history. We then looked at a few physical images and coins; finally they asked me some general questions about why I wanted to study the course and my personal statement.
I mainly read some academic journals which I found on Google Scholar and went through my personal statement to make sure I could expand on anything that I had talked about. I also practised talking about a topic which I didn’t know much about by picking up a random article/written source/object and then either thinking of questions myself or getting others to ask me questions about it. I think this was great at helping me keep calm as nearly everything we talked about in interview was something new to me. I found good questions to practise were: what can this source tell us? What is interesting about this source? What can’t this source tell us? How useful or reliable is this source? What more information would it be helpful to know to understand this source better?
I can also guarantee that they will pick something to discuss in interview that you will know very little about. It is not a knowledge quiz so don’t panic if you don’t know an answer or feel confused. The best thing you can do is think out loud. So if they ask you a question and you are not sure of the answer, try to explain any thoughts you might have. So if you know the answer can’t be X explain why it can’t be that and then they will be able to see your thoughts and help you. Be confident that you are there because they want to hear your thoughts.