MLAT, 3 Interviews
Interview 1: Text, personal statement and some French speaking; Interview 2: Discussed a text and German literature; Interview 3: Discussed a text.
Know your personal statement, be friendly, practice analysing some texts
Past papers are your best friend!
Enjoy the interview, see it as an opportunity.
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: Modern Languages Admissions Test (MLAT)
Number of interviews: 3
Time between interviews: I think I had 2 on one day (a few hours in between) and 1 the next day
Length of interviews: on average, 30 minutes.
Online interview: No
Don't stress. It will seem daunting but at the end of the day, it really is just a conversation. The tutors aren't trying to see if you know everything, they more just want to see your style of learning, how you respond to difficult questions, and your thought processes. I really recommend speaking out loud as you answer questions to demonstrate your thought processes.
In my French interview, they asked me to analyse a poem, then answer questions on the poem. They then asked me about some of the books in my statement and why I'd chosen to write about them. Then there was about 5 minutes in which I spoke French with them, again about my personal statement and what I'd written.
In my first German interview, I also had to analyse a poem and then we discussed some German literature that I had read (Die Verwandlung by Kafka). In my second interview (which was at the faculty because I applied for Beginner's German) they gave me a text of quite basic German and we talked about it. Then we discussed my learning style. There was never a point in any of my interviews where I was made to feel uncomfortable, that's really not their aim. You have so got this ! Just be yourself.
1. Make sure you know your personal statement very well. If you have mentioned books/films make sure you know what they are about and make sure you can speak about them and explain why you included them.
2. My main advice would be to be friendly and be yourself ! The tutors are partly interviewing you to see if you can respond well in class and are just generally a nice person to teach - so if you are smiley, say hi and goodbye, and be yourself,
3. For all of my interviews they gave me something to analyse before hand (poem/short text) and I had 15-20 minutes to read and analyse it. I definitely advise practising this a few times at home, just choosing any poem/short text and practising speaking out an analysis.
I mostly relied on practice papers because it gives you a really good idea of what kind of questions can come up. Try and print them out and set yourself out in 'exam condition,' so in a quiet area if possible and timed, and then go over it after and correct it using a dictionary/online stuff.
I did Beginner's German, so I had to do the linguistics test too, and the past papers are definitely useful for that too. For languages, I recommend doing a bit of grammar revision. The exam is relatively short and don't
My advice would be to try and enjoy the interviews. If you don't get it it's really not the end of the world (wherever you end up, you will love it !!) so just enjoy having a conversation about a topic you find really interesting. As I said previously, try and be friendly and personable - the tutors want someone they deem as 'teachable.'