Natural Sciences (Biological) @ King's, Cambridge in 2019

Interview format

Natural Sciences Admissions Assessment (NSAA); 2x interviews

Interview content

Interview 1: discussion of interests within biology; Interview 2: maths questions, biological research

Best preparation

Did wider reading

Test preparation

Revised A Level content

Final thoughts

Think out loud to let the interviewers 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: Natural Sciences Admissions Assessment (NSAA)
Number of interviews: 2
Time between interviews: 10 minutes
Length of interviews: 1 hour 
Online interview: No

What happened in your interview? How did you feel?

The first interview was quite informal -just having a discussion about some areas of biology that I liked and some chemistry too just proposing ideas and experiments, more of an informal chat.

The second interview was a bit harder, we did some maths and talked about some probable situations involved in biological systems, but again I settled into it and it became more of a discussion of biological research.

How did you prepare for your interviews?

I did a couple of mock interviews with my school and just revised the A Level syllabus and tried to do as much outside reading - I spoke to some teachers for advice and a student from my college that applied to Cambridge the previous year on what to expect.

If you took a test, how did you prepare?

Revising A Level content, past papers and I bought a book online with NSAA style questions and practiced the Multiple Choice Question timings.

What advice would you give to future applicants?

Dont worry too much about sounding intelligent straight away - in my second interview there were times were I would sit in silence trying to figure out what to say, but as it went on I found out that it was much better to think aloud as it lets them know how you think, and they can guide you more easily.