Philosophy, Politics And Economics @ St Anne's, Oxford in 2018

Interview format

3x 20 min interviews, each 1 day apart

Interview content

Interview 1 (Politics): personal statement, map; Interview 2 (Philosophy): connection between PPE subjects, logic, reading; Interview 3 (Economics): problem sheet given before

Best preparation

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Final thoughts

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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: TSA

Number of interviews: 3

Skype interview: No

Time between each interview: 1 day

Length of interviews: 20 minutes each

What happened in your interview? How did you feel?

In my politics interview, I was first asked about an achievement I mentioned in my personal statement, to break the ice. We then delved into a discussion based on a map they were showing me. I was asked to guess what the map was measuring, and how I, as a social science student, would measure these indicators.

In my philosophy interview, they asked me about my thoughts on the interconnectivity between the three PPE subjects. We did some quickfire logic questions (no prior knowledge of logic required), then they gave me a philosophy reading followed by some questions about it and my opinion on the passage.

In my economics interview, I was given a problem sheet I believe 10 minutes before, which I was allowed to think about before entering the room. It was a silly scenario based on a real-world situation, and it was very mathematical, but the later questions were more conceptual, relating to political implications. When I entered the room, they asked me about if I'd read any economics books before, and if I disagreed with anything I've read. We then worked through the problem.

How did you prepare?

I didn't prepare.

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

I did not prepare.