4 x 30 min interviews, ELAT and MLAT
Was given poems in both languages, asked about the analysis I did surrounding the poems, any related themes to anything else I had read; personal statement
I just discussed as much as possible with whoever was willing to listen!
Practice papers
If someone tells you not to get your hopes up, try not to listen to them. If you get as far as interview, you're doing amazingly well already
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: English Literature Admissions Test (
Number of interviews: 4
Time between interviews: Up to a day
Length of interviews: Felt like hours, realistically about half an hour max
Online interview: No
Was given poems in both languages, asked about the analysis I did surrounding the poems, any related themes to anything else I had read. Asked about my personal statement - expect specific responses to whatever you wrote! Felt anxious at the time, but by the last interview just tried to imagine it as a tutorial. They genuinely want to get to know you as a student, so just be yourself!
I just discussed as much as possible with whoever was willing to listen! Forced myself to describe my specific interests often and kept getting people to ask me awkward questions.
Found every practice paper on the website, finished all of them (for the German) - practiced writing longer, faster essays about randomly selected English texts
If someone tells you not to get your hopes up, try not to listen to them. If you get as far as interview, you're doing amazingly well already