3x 25 min interviews
Personal statement discussion, problem sheets on paper or whiteboard
Use MAT practice papers to your advantage
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Think aloud, and try not to worry about how you've done at interview.
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
Skype interview: No
Length of interviews: about 25 minutes each
Most of the interviews started with a little personal statement discussion. But then we would go pretty quickly into the problem sheet. I spent the time talking through solutions and trying different ideas - some on paper, some on a whiteboard. I was
Over the months leading up to the test I did every single past paper available online. My main advice for maths applicants is to familiarise yourself with the kinds of questions that appear on the
I made sure I knew what I’d said on my personal statement, in case they asked me to expand on any of it (which one of the interviews did). Through a friend of my mum I managed to get in contact with an
I was extremely anxious going into the whole process and felt rather disheartened after some of the interviews (where I barely managed to answer anything). However, I now realise that the interviewers are more interested in your problem solving process than your specific knowledge base, and would much rather you talked through a problem or task, rather than sit in silence for 5 minutes and then write down the correct answer.