Test taken: CAT

Number of interviews: 2

Skype interview: No

Time between each interview: 2-3 hours

Length of interviews: about 30 minutes each

Interview 1: The interview began with being asked to tell the 2 interviewers an intellectual question I had considered that was not discussed on my personal statement (quite a daunting start!). We had some discussion about my response, including some challenges and countering from the interviewers, which worried me a little. Eventually they linked what I was saying back to certain topics from my personal statement. Afterwards, various other topics from my personal statement were discussed, but some points which I felt certain would come up were never mentioned, so the statement is not the be all and end all, nor was my written work ever mentioned. There were also two unseen stimuli, a 19th century English poem that I needed a fair bit of prompting on, and an archaeological drawing of an unspecified structure which I suggested was a mausoleum, which led to further discussion about burial traditions I had read about.

Interview 2: I had 15 minutes beforehand to read a logic puzzle (this was the philosophy interview). My Maths and Further Maths A levels and coding hobby certainly helped with this. I was also some logical conundrums of the sort similar to 'All my elephants are either African or Indian. Discuss the ambiguities in this sentence'. The interviewer mainly let me talk and come to my conclusions at my own pace. The second half of the interview was with another interviewer, who had until now been silent, and I was asked to analyse two poems, one by Seamus Heaney and one by Horace, and discuss the similarities and differences between them and literary techniques used. Given my familiarity with the Augustan poets, I found this a lot easier than analysing the poem in my previous interview.

I did all the practice papers that are online (around 4 or 5 on the website), but mainly I read lots of different authors, including ones more difficult than the standard of the test. Lots of good unseen books can be found on eBay or in charity shops, I found it useful both doing unseens independently and collaboratively with my teacher.

I read as much as I could, mainly on topics that linked to my A level set texts (e.g. I read about the Roman Republic, since I was studying Cicero's Pro Milone at the time), but I would advise that it isn't necessary to read every single book about your subject ever written - only a fraction of what you've read will be mentioned at interview and there'll be other chances to prove yourself if you aren't so knowledgeable about one topic they bring up. I also found that casual chats with my teacher about something one of us was interested in really helped, more so than the more formal mock interviews organised by my school; in general I'd say that interviews are a lot more informal than you'd expect and you'll succeed if you treat them like a chance to chat and share ideas about your subject with likeminded parties.

One important thing I'd recommend for when you get to Oxford is not to be brought down by other people's interview stories, since everyone's experience of interviews is different and, if they're being particularly optimistic, that doesn't necessarily mean that the tutor will have felt the same way.