Philosophy, Politics And Economics @ The Queen's, Oxford in 2017

Interview format

2x interviews, over 1 day

Interview content

All interviews: text given beforehand; Politics: political philosophy, personal statement; Philosophy: dualism; Economics: maths problem

Best preparation

12 timed past papers

Advice in hindsight

-

Final thoughts

Focus on test first; talk about subject with parents, friends and teachers.

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.

Interview Format

Test taken: TSA

Number of interviews: 2

Skype interview: No

Both interviews on same day

Length of interviews: 45 minutes in total

What happened in your interview? How did you feel?

Politics - I was given an excerpt about political philosophy, and we had a discussion of what norms society should be based on.

Economics - I had to do a bunch of maths questions to do with markets not functioning correctly.

Philosophy - We discussed dualism.

Each interview was about a sheet they handed to you before. I think that for 5 minutes at the end of my politics interview they asked something about my personal statement.

The atmosphere was very relaxed and calm. I genuinely wasn't nervous at any stage, but I know most people were very nervous, before and during the interview.

How did you prepare?

I did 12 past papers under timed conditions.

What advice do you have for future applicants?

Looking back, what advice would you give to your past self?

Most of my preparation was for the TSA, and my advice to anyone would be to do as well as you possibly can in whatever test you have. Make sure you get a good night's sleep before the exam and that you are familiar with what is inside.

Try talking about intellectual shit with your parents, friends and teachers, that would be my advice for interview, and come into interviews with the attitude that you are just having a conversation. But focus on the aptitude test, this interview shit is putting the cart before the horse.