Mathematics Admissions Test, 3x interviews
Questions are maths based, in order of increasing difficulty
Got used to talking about maths
Completed past papers
Just relax and enjoy the maths
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: 3
Time between interviews: 1-2 days
Length of interviews: 30 minutes
Online interview: Yes
So, each interview had two interviewers, each with 15 minutes to ask you maths questions. They gradually build up to a final problem, and if you solve that there are more bonus problems.
The interviewers were friendly and I got along with them well. But mostly I was in the zone of solving maths. Don't worry if you make silly calculation errors, I made several and still got in! They just quickly correct you and move on.
In my mind there's two components to an Oxford maths interview. Being able to solve the maths problems, and talk about the problems. The first step can only really be prepared by doing lots of maths. No real shortcut because the interviewers could as anything, and it will be unfamiliar. So MAT and
The second part, I think you need to get used to speaking about your maths. For example, I ran a maths society, so I was doing weekly presentations on various maths techniques etc. I'm not saying you have to run a society or such, but being in that environment and having experience talking really helped me. Perhaps instead you could find a friend and collaboratively solve maths problem. So
Almost all the past papers for MAT. AEA [Advanced Extension Award] is a similar exam so their past papers can be used too. And a little bit of
You don't need to over prepare for interviews, because, well you can't really predict what's going to come up. Just relax and enjoy the maths. And during the interview, keep trying stuff if you're stuck. The interviewers are there to guide you and that's sort of expected.