Every year, Oxford hopefuls face the University’s interview challenge—designed to test their general knowledge, and their ability to interact and learn through high-level discourse in the style of Oxford tutorials.

The following tips are brought to you by Oxford student Tabi Brewster (English, Pembroke College).

1. Expect questions you don’t know the answers to—expect the unexpected

Don’t panic if they ask you something and you have no idea what they’re talking about; take your time, and make sure to explain your thinking out loud as you go. They will be able to push your ideas and give you hints if you take the time to articulate your thoughts.

2. Take a copy of your statement, and swap every full stop for a question

Questions about my personal statement were very broad, and I was asked simply to ‘expand on’ some comments I had made in my statement. Questioning your own statements, will really encourage you to dig deeper into what you have said, and take your ideas further. Think of what you would want to say if you were asked to justify any ideas you put down.

3. Talk about what interests you

One of the main qualities they are looking for is passion for their subject, and this will only come across if you are genuinely excited by what you’re discussing. Take advantage of the vaguer questions they ask you, for example my interview began with ‘You said in your statement that... Could you tell me more about that?’ These questions are a golden opportunity to talk about what you’re genuinely interested in.

4. Make sure you’re up to speed on the books mentioned in your statement

They will ask you about them, and probably encourage you to think about them in ways you have not considered before. The questions may be very niche. A statement might refer to female protagonists in Thackeray’s Vanity Fair, but the question asked might be on how Thackeray’s illustrations influenced his writing.

5. Think of the interview as a back-and-forth conversational exchange, more than an interview

The interview is not so much an ‘interview’, but more of a conversation, mimicking the Oxford tutorials. The tutors will spring off ideas that you have, there’s no script or set questions, so don’t be afraid to discuss thoughts as they arrive, and shape the conversation to your own strengths.

6. As well as vague questions, be prepared for very specific questions

You might be given a poem and an extract from a speech to read and discuss, with no prep time. You may be asked some very bizarre questions (eg. ‘can you tell me what you think the verb ‘to husband’ means here?’ ‘what’s the subject of the verb in this line?’). They are meant to be challenging, and meant to encourage you to ‘think outside the box’. So if you get thrown a few curveballs, try not to panic, think out loud, and don’t be afraid to ask them to elaborate if you don’t know.

7. For text-based questions, identify interesting features and draw comparisons

It’s really important to think about how and why certain elements are included, as that will be the first thing they ask you as soon as you pick up on any features. Don’t be afraid to draw comparisons with other texts you’ve studied and read too, to show your general knowledge.

8. Think of the ideas you begin the interview with as starting points

By the end of the interview, you will probably have a completely different set of ideas to the ones you started off with, and that’s exactly what’s meant to happen - and happens for students every week after they leave tutorials.

9. Try not to research too much

The interviews are different every year and between every college, so they cannot be anticipated. Even if you over-research, it could still be that the format, style and questions are different from what you were expecting.

10. Remember how far you’ve come

Remember that getting an interview is an amazing achievement in itself and you have just as much chance as anyone else of getting in, once you’ve got this far. So take the interview in stride, talk through your ideas and allow yourself do your best.

You can read the original version of Tabi’s full interview experience here.