English Literature Admissions Test; 2x interviews
Interview 1: discussed pre-reading; Interview 2: discussed pre-reading
Reading summaries of personal statement texts
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Try to talk through your thought process
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.
Test taken: English Literature Admissions Test (ELAT)
Number of interviews: 2
Skype interview: no
Time between interviews: about 2 hours
Length of first interview: 30 minutes; Length of second interview: 30 minutes
We were given pre-reading twenty minutes before the interview started. One was a longer piece of prose, the other was a sonnet. The interview started with casual discussion of these extracts and then went on to cover more broad themes. I wasn’t asked any questions directly on my personal statement.
To prepare, I looked at the page on the ELAT on the university’s website. I also read summaries of everything I’d put on my personal statement (this was useful to reassure myself), and I did extra reading around my A level topics.
The interviewers seemed to want to see my thought process and how I spoke my way through questions, so try to verbalise your thoughts.