Mathematics Admissions Test (MAT); 2x interviews
Interview 1: graph sketching; Interview 2: calculus, proof
Revised A Level content
STEP practice questions
Try to use the hints and advice the interviewers give you to work towards an answer
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:
Number of interviews: 2
Time between interviews: A few days
Length of interviews: 30 minutes
Online interview: Yes
There was no personal statement discussion at all. In one interview, I was asked to sketch a few graphs, then I was introduced to graph theory and asked to solve some problems in it. The other interview was mainly calculus (integration) with some other miscellaneous questions. The questions were in the form "show/prove that..." or "sketch the graph..." or "what can you tell me about..." or "if I do this, can I also have that?" When I got stuck or made a mistake, they would give me hints to get back on track. The most important thing was to keep communicating because there were some technical difficulties but they were very patient and understanding.
I revised the A level Maths/Further Maths content I had been taught up to that point. My teacher helped me practice sketching tricky graphs while explaining my reasoning out loud. My school managed to arrange
Past papers,
Remember to revise integration and graph-sketching, and practice explaining your reasoning to an adult you aren't too familiar with. The interviewers are not looking for you to get the right answer straight away, instead they want to know how you think about it and whether you can use the information they give you when you get stuck.