Free Interview Resources
Free practice questions, preparation advice, and expert insights for English interviews at Cambridge.
Real English interview questions in the style Cambridge asks. Try answering each one aloud before you reveal the hint.
Read and date this short, anonymous poem. Comment on the use of imagery and its effect.
Close-Reading & Passage Analysis
Here is a poem you have not seen before. Read it carefully and tell me what you notice about the way it uses sound.
Close-Reading & Passage Analysis
This passage is from a novel published in 1890 and this one from a novel published in 1990. What assumptions about the reader does each writer seem to be making, and how can you tell?
Close-Reading & Passage Analysis
If you had to argue that this poem is a failure, what would your argument be?
Close-Reading & Passage Analysis
Select two passages and compare and contrast them in any ways that seem interesting to you, paying particular attention to distinctive features of structure, language and style.
Close-Reading & Passage Analysis
Supervision-style interviews with problem-solving and academic discussion, often with two interviewers.
Cambridge interviews usually happen at your first-choice college. Most applicants have two interviews, with some subjects requiring a third at the pooled college. Cambridge interviews tend to involve two interviewers and may include a written assessment or pre-interview task sent on the day.
Interview Invitation
Late Nov
Arrival to Interview
Early Dec
Technical Question
Mid Dec
Decision
Early Jan
Interview Invitation
Late Nov
Arrival to Interview
Early Dec
Technical Question
Mid Dec
Decision
Early Jan
Read this short prose extract and explain how the narrative voice shapes your response to the scene.
Why do we read literature?
How is poetry linked to music and other arts?
What makes a novel a classic? What is a modern classic?
Can a reader ever know a writer's intention?
Do you think it is important to study literature in chronological order?
Do students of literature need to know about history?
Should we have a literary canon?
Can tragedy transcend time?
Do you think the ending of The Mill on the Floss is poor?
Is an author's life important when looking at their work?
Was Shakespeare a rebel?
What does the Ghost in Hamlet have to do with madness?
Charles Lamb claimed that Shakespeare's plays are meant to be read, not performed. Do you agree?
Would you rather be a novel or a poem?
If you could make up a word, what would it be?
Tell me about your favourite poem.
What is your favourite book of all time?
Tell me about something you have read recently.
You have said in your personal statement that you find unreliable narrators interesting. What makes a narrator unreliable, and does it matter whether the author intends the unreliability?
Is allusion or imitation stealing?
How far is a reader responsible for understanding the historical context of a text before judging it?
12+ weeks before
8-12 weeks before
4-6 weeks before
1-2 weeks before
0-1 weeks before
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Further Reading
by David Lodge
Short chapters on narrative technique help applicants turn close-reading observations into precise critical vocabulary.
by James Wood
Useful for thinking about narration, free indirect style, realism and the relation between form and judgement.
by William Empson
A challenging close-reading text for applicants who want to stretch habits of interpretation.
by H. Porter Abbott
Gives accessible terminology for discussing narrative perspective, time, plot and interpretation.
by Margreta de Grazia and Stanley Wells, editors
Supports preparation for Cambridge's compulsory Shakespeare component without reducing plays to plot recall.
by University of Cambridge
Department site for exploring the subject and current faculty context.
by University of Cambridge
Official source for course structure, entry requirements, written work and assessment notes.
by University of Cambridge
Official preparation guidance for Cambridge interviews.
by British Library
Contextual essays and primary materials for broadening literary range.
by Poetry Foundation
Useful for regular unseen poetry practice and reading beyond the exam syllabus.