English Language And Literature @ The Queen's, Oxford in 2015

Interview format

2x 25 min interview, 3 hours apart

Interview content

Interview 1: poems given 20 mins earlier; Interview 2: reading interests

Best preparation

Read book on practical criticism; made sure to get lots of sleep.

Advice in hindsight

-

Final thoughts

Read through personal statement several times; looked through some sample questions online.

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: ELAT

Number of interviews: 2

Skype interview: No

Time between each interview: 3 hours

Length of interviews: 25 minutes each

What happened in your interview? How did you feel?

Interview 1: I was given two modernist poems 20 minutes before the interview and could annotate them as much as I wished. The interviewer (eventually my tutor) chose 1 of them and we discussed it at length - I offered my own interpretation, and then she chose a few lines to zoom in on more. Questions ranged from building my own interpretation to literary techniques. There was another note-taker in the room, but she didn't speak.

Interview 2: A more general interview on my reading interests. She referred extensively to my personal statement (!) and asked about the books I'd mentioned in it. Most questions were about my readings about these texts, although some were straight-up literary theory (e.g. questions about features of literary periods). A second interviewer was also present (different from the first), this time, he pitched in with some questions.

The interviews took place in the tutor's very cosy office - I sat on a sofa across from them. Both were in the afternoon; I think one at 2pm and the other at 5pm. The atmosphere was friendly and I felt at ease after the first few questions because the interviewers were warm and encouraging. I left feeling like I'd really been challenged, but not in an antagonistic way.

How did you prepare?

I read a book on practical criticism and made sure to get lots of rest the night before.

What advice do you have for future applicants?

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

I read through my personal statement many times, which came in handy for my second interview when they referred to it.

Otherwise, I looked through some sample questions online (knowing that they wouldn't be 100% accurate however), and then made some notes on what I enjoyed about Literature, why I wanted to go to Oxford, and some things I was interested to study at university.