Test taken: TSA

Number of interviews: 3

Skype interview: No

Interview spread: 2 on first day, 1 on second day

Length of interviews: 30 minutes each, with 15 minutes preparation time for each

Economics
We were given a problem sheet about insurance and risk to look at for 30 minutes before the interview. The interview itself was going through each question, walking through the answers we had given, and trying to answer the ones we hadn’t managed. It was just like a tutorial: I would explain my thinking/approach to a question, and the tutors would give suggestions or ask questions to point me in the right direction.

Philosophy
We were given a two part sheet to look at before the interview. The first proposed a definition of some concept (it was some everyday concept like ‘lying’), and had questions asking us to consider the logical implications of the definition, then critically evaluate it. The second part was an extremely difficult excerpt from an academic article - beyond the level of 1st year Philosophy, and I believe beyond finals Philosophy as well. We were asked to read and be ready to discuss it.
The interview was effectively walking through these parts. I was quite panicked because I didn’t feel I had understood the article enough to discuss it, but going through the first section, about logic, I felt more comfortable. When we got to the article, it was clear they had intended to put us out of our depth and see how we responded. They didn’t let me off easily. I repeatedly tried to explain what the author’s argument was, the tutor pointed out a problem with that explanation, and I had to try again.

Politics
We were given a short political theory text by an unnamed author on the subject of authority. The interview was quite wide ranging, discussing the text, but also some of the books I had mentioned in my personal statement, and how they related to authority. It was extremely challenging, and each time I felt I had gotten my grounding in the question being discussed, the tutor would add a new level of complexity. Near the end, there was a brief discussion with a different (political science) tutor about democratic peace theory.

The only thing I did for the TSA was to use past papers to practise. Because speed is so important, once I was comfortable with the types of question I would prepare a few questions from one of the types of question (the critical thinking or the problem solving) and give myself a very short amount of time (1-1.5 minutes) to answer each. Because I was better at the critical thinking questions, I focussed on being able to do these as quickly as possible, so I had more time to think about the problem solving questions.

When you take the test, I really recommend doing all questions of one type, then all questions of the other, so you get into the right mindset for each.

In my opinion, most of the short term tactics people advise don’t help, like looking up your interviewers’ areas of interest, trying to figure out what the format of the interview will be, re-reading the books on your personal statement, and reading the news the week before interview. For me, I would say the best preparation is focussed on the basic skills the course uses. In philosophy, this might mean reading difficult academic articles, trying to reconstruct their arguments in simpler terms, and generally getting a good sense of how arguments work. In economics, getting very good at maths, and the problem solving questions in the TSA. In politics, again, this might mean trying to read difficult texts in political science and theory.

If you can manage that, it won’t matter what questions exactly come up in the interview. At the end of the day the tutors want people who will write good essays and have productive conversations with them in tutorials. They’ll be looking for that in the interview, so work towards that!