Engineering @ Queens', Cambridge in 2018

Interview format

ENGAA; 2x interviews

Interview content

Interview 1:Technical; Interview 2:General

Best preparation

ENGAA, Isaac Physics

Advice in hindsight

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Final thoughts

Interviewers are trying to see how you think

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: ENGAA

Number of interviews: 2

Skype interview: no

Time between interviews: 1 hour

Length of interviews: 30 minutes

What happened in your interview? How did you feel?

The first interview was a 'technical' interview where I was asked 2 fairly challenging extended questions on mechanics. The second interview was a more general one where we talked about extra reading I had done around the subject, before doing a few short maths questions. The interviewers were nice and settled any nerves quite well, and it was a surprisingly relaxed atmosphere. There were two interviewers in each interview, with one doing most of the questions while the other wrote stuff down.

How did you prepare?

I did ENGAA past papers and questions from Isaac Physics.

What advice do you have for future applicants?

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

The best preparation was to do problems from past Physics Olympiad papers, both rounds 1 & 2. Round 1 questions are at approximately the right level, while the round 2 questions are harder than those asked in the interview. Preparing this way is good because the questions make you think much more than questions from a book. The interviewers are trying to see how you think, not just factual recall, so don't be afraid to ask for anything you forget on the spot, like equations etc.