4x 15-20 min interviews, over 2 days
Texts given beforehand, reading / personal statement, short German conversation
Practise academic discussion with anyone/everyone
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Don't be afraid to make mistakes or contradict yourself.
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: 4
Skype interview: No
Interview spread: 3 in one day, 1 another day
Length of interviews: 15-20 minutes each
I had 2 interviews for Italian, one for German, and one for modern languages in general. In the language specific interviews I had pre-reading for all of them, usually a poem but in my second Italian one at another college I had 3 short extracts. I had around 15/20 minutes to prepare these - with my Italian ones there was an English translation as I applied for a beginner’s course, for my German one I was allowed a dictionary in my preparation time. The interviews were typically a discussion of the poem/texts we were given, then a discussion of literature I had read or things on my personal statement. In my German interview we also had to talk for 5 minutes in German, but not for Italian as they do not expect this from a beginner.
My general modern languages interview was very short and with the head of modern languages at Exeter - we talked about my motives for choosing the course and it led in the end to a discussion about literature in general. I was extremely nervous before all of my interviews, but as soon as I got into the discussion I felt much more at ease and actually really enjoyed them. The atmosphere was relaxed in all of my interviews and all of the
For the test, I did practice papers and revised grammar.
Make sure you know everything on your personal statement thoroughly. Find some literature you enjoy and think of good key things you could mention when asked about it, use anyone you can to practise academic discussion, and make sure you are fully passionate about your subject and can easily show that.
My sixth form college had Oxbridge support in place, however, looking back, a lot of this was unhelpful; I was told I wasn’t going to get in and that I would need to be essentially perfect at my subject before I arrived - this is not true!
Be well prepared and confident but don’t be afraid to contradict yourself or admit your mistakes in an interview setting - this happens all of the time in