Modern And Medieval Languages @ Fitzwilliam, Cambridge in 2016

Interview format

2x interviews (20-30 mins). Pre-reading. Written test.

Interview content

Grammatical analysis and talking about literature.

Best preparation

Practice interviews and tests.

Final thoughts

Try your best.

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

I went in for an interview day at Fitz and waited in a hall with loads of other applicants. I had one general interview with 2 Fellows where I had to talk about my A Level English Literature books and had to decipher an Aztec language from the context given. Then I had another interview later in the day which was in Spanish with another two fellows and I had to analyse a poem I had been given 20 minutes before and just spoke a bit about where I was from etc in the language. There was also a written test in the morning, in which I had to write a piece in French and then analyse a French text in English. The interviews lasted around 20-30 minutes but they felt much faster.

What happened in your interview? How did you feel?

I had to grammatically analyse words in a poem, that I had been given in a foreign language, thinking about the context. We also spoke about a dystopian novel, power and how rulers rule (whether it's autocratic etc).

How did you prepare?

I did practice interviews with friends and teachers, asking mock questions and some practice written tests too.

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

Be as enthusiastic as you can and don’t worry if you don’t know an answer: you’re not expected to know everything. They want to see how you approach that sort of thing so just work it through out loud if you want and give it your best shot.