Philosophy, Politics And Economics @ St Catherine's, Oxford in 2018

Interview format

2x interviews (20 mins each), 1 day apart

Interview content

Progressively more difficult questions about concepts

Best preparation

Past papers

Final thoughts

Revise personal statement; contact current students if possible; practise interview-style questions.

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

Time between each interview: 1 day

Length of interviews: about 20 minutes each

What happened in your interview? How did you feel?

Every interview had the same format. They introduce a concept to you and just get you to play with it then see how you react.

They then asked progressivey more complex questions about the effects of changes to the concept they had introduced until I couldn't answer.

How did you prepare?

I completed a couple of past papers.

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

Revise your personal statement, contact current students to ask them for help, and practise interview style questions.

I found the interviews as I had exppected - a little baffling at points but, having practiced questions with friends and teachers, I felt comfortable giving my answers.