3x 20-30 min interviews, each 1 day apart
Politics: text given beforehand; Philosophy: question on fairness; Economics: problem sheet given beforehand
Timed practice papers
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Practise TSA, timed; don't worry about knowing a lot; try to talk about your subject with someone interested.
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.
Test taken:
Number of interviews: 3
Skype interview: No
Time between each interview: 1 day
Length of interviews: 20-30 minutes each
Politics - I was given a page of reading an hour before the interview. The interview involved discussing my thoughts on the text and what I thought about the argument presented.
Philosophy - I was asked a question about fairness, in the form of an example (i.e., they asked what was the fairest way to do a certain thing). I froze for the first 30 seconds but the interviewer guided the conversation till I found my feet.
Economics - I was given a work sheet an hour before the interview to work through, which I then took with me and discussed during the interview. I got about half the questions wrong but managed to figure out where I'd gone wrong with the interviewer.
I did practice papers in timed conditions.
Practice the
Don't worry about being super knowledgeable in the interviews, the most important thing is your ability to work through problems with the interviewer. If you know lots about the topic area they'll just hit you with harder questions anyway, so everyone is on a fairly level playing field. Also, don't see the interviewer as the enemy. They normally act very similarly to how they would if they were teaching you, and will usually give you helpful tips if you've lost your train of thought or can't seem to get your head around a concept.
The best way to prepare for interviews is probably to try and find someone interested in that area and talk to them about it. Just getting used to communicating your thoughts about the types of topics you'll be discussing is very helpful. Again though, don't worry if you're only discussing things at a fairly rudimentary level. It's ability, not knowledge, which counts.