2x interviews (20mins)
1st: general, personal statement; 2nd: political philosophy & abstract discussion
Books read over summer; mock interviews - more about upping confidence than anything else
Ignore people that seem overly-confident
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.
Two interviews, the first with a professor who wasn't in my subject and said she was more interested in me as a person rather than academics. The second was with two philosophy professors. Both interview lasted around 20 minutes.
In the first interview I was asked personal questions that were aimed at getting to know me as a person. She also asked a little bit about my personal statement. I was surprised at how laid back the interview was, so although I was nervous before, the actual interview wasn't too bad.
In the second interview, each professor asked questions for about half the time on their area of specialisation. The first was political philosophy, & we spoke about democracy for a bit. With the second we spoke a bit about perceptions of reality. I hadn't studied or prepared for this type of question in any way so I just took my time to think and answered using common sense as best I could. One thing I do remember was that at the start of the subject interview, I was told that the interviewers did not want me to name drop things I'd read, they just wanted to see how I thought on the spot.
I had read a lot of books the summer before and made notes on what I'd read. In fact, I didn't get asked about a single thing I'd read, but it was great preparation because it made me go into the interview confident that I knew something about the subject and that I'd prepared as best I could. Preparation is not just about what you can use in the interview, it's also about what will make you feel most confident going into the interview.
My school organised a couple of
Ignore other people. I remember sitting in cafe Nero listening to someone who was clearly an interview candidate talking about some really complex theory that made them sound really clever. Honestly, the people who swagger around before interviews are often just nervous and trying to cover it up, and what they say is often highly over-exaggerated. So don't be intimidated by other people seeming smarter than you because (1) it's probably not true and (2) it's not helpful.