Philosophy, Politics And Economics @ Worcester, Oxford in 2018

Interview format

2x 30 min interviews, 1 day apart

Interview content

Interview 1 (politics and economics): personal statement, economics problem, politics definition; Interview 2 (philosophy): logic, paradoxes

Best preparation

TSA and BMAT practice papers, TSA books

Advice in hindsight

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Final thoughts

Review books on personal statement; enjoy Oxford; be flexible in interviews.

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: 3

Skype interview: No

Time between each interview: 1 day

Length of interviews: 30 minutes each

What happened in your interview? How did you feel?

My first interview was split: half politics and half economics. The economics half I was very nervous for, and struggled to speak sense even when just asked about my personal statement and an essay I'd written for a competition. The tutor was very friendly. He could see I was nervous and did his best to help. I was then asked a question about tax, which involved mental maths, and questions about the effects of tax as an incentive. The politics half of my interview I was much less nervous for, and was about defining a common term which often isn't thought about. As I provided a definition, I was provided with counter examples, in response to which I edited the definition slightly.

My second interview was also in two halves, but both were philosophy, albeit with different tutors. The first half consisted of a truth table from logic, which I had to fill in for various conjunctions; this led to a paradox I had to comment on. The second half of the interview was dedicated to one famous paradox, which I had to read and then suggest a solution to.

How did you prepare?

I did lots of practice papers - there are about 10 online. BMAT papers are great too. I didn't stress too much about section 2 as colleges put less weight on this. I also bought "Think you can Think", "Cracking the TSA" and "TSA Past Paper Worked Solutions" and worked through them.

What advice do you have for future applicants?

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

I didn't prepare that much for interviews, which I think went quite well - I only read over and annotated my personal statement and read essays and summaries of books mentioned on my personal statement.

I didn't spend lots of time in my room at the interviews cramming before. Rather, I treated it as a few days I could spend in Oxford, so I went out and had a look around a lot of the time. I also spent a lot of time in the JCR chatting with other applicants, which was nice, but make sure they don't put you off, especially if they're on your course.

My top tip is to make sure you're flexible in interviews - treat the interview as a mock tutorial.