Two 20 minute interviews. Given a source 30 minutes before first interview.
First interview: focused on source given 30 minutes before interview. Second interview: focused on long essays submitted in advance.
Practice interviews. Chatting about academic ideas with friends and family. Reading or watching around your subject.
Don’t over-analyse your experience post-interview!
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.
I had two interviews, one at 8.30am and one at around 10am. They were both around 20/25 minutes long, and each one was with two academics.
I was given a source to look at about 30 minutes before the first interview.
In the first interview, I was asked to talk about a source which I had been given prior to interview. It was a brief discussion of diaries written by children in the 18th century. I was then asked some more conceptual questions about how I would approach abstract issues (e.g. space, childhood, dreams, etc.).
I was also asked some more specific questions about my personal statement. I think I was asked to clarify some of the things I said about the topics I covered in my personal statement, and what they might 'mean' for history.
In my second interview, I was asked more specifically about two essays which I had to submit a few weeks before. One was on Pompey the Great, and the other was on John Wilkes. I was asked which one I wanted to talk about first (I went for Wilkes, and we pretty much only talked about that one). I was asked several relatively difficult questions about the topic, and I did feel a bit out of my depth! I was asked to consider the topics I had written about in relation to different factors they gave me - many of which I hadn't thought about before.
I was really lucky to have a couple of
I also found just chatting about academic ideas with friends and family was a good, relaxed and fun way to prepare as well. Reading around your subject, even watching documentaries, or reading news articles about things going on in your subject can also make you feel 'up to date' and more prepared.
Don't worry if you don't think your interview went well, plenty of people felt like that and got in! Try not to over-analyse your interviews afterwards, and just give yourself a nice break to unwind. The experience, while fun, can be stressful.