Free Interview Resources
Free practice questions, preparation advice, and expert insights for History and Modern Languages interviews at Oxford.
Real History and Modern Languages interview questions in the style Oxford asks. Try answering each one aloud before you reveal the hint.
Tell me about this literary work you mentioned in your UCAS personal statement.
Close-Reading & Passage Analysis
What do you think Voltaire meant by 'Il faut cultiver notre jardin'?
Close-Reading & Passage Analysis
How can you apply themes from a given poem or text to your knowledge of the country's culture?
Close-Reading & Passage Analysis
Can you describe this stimulus, for example a painting?
Close-Reading & Passage Analysis
Is violence always political?
Conceptual & Discussion Questions
Tutorial-style interviews with subject-specific problems, often involving unfamiliar material.
Oxford interviews typically take place at the college you applied to. You will usually have two or three interviews of around 20-30 minutes each, sometimes at different colleges if you are pooled. The atmosphere is meant to resemble a tutorial: the interviewer gives you a problem and watches how you reason through it.
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
What makes a novel or play 'political'?
What if all art is, in fact, political?
What do we lose if we only read a foreign work of literature in translation?
In what ways do you think that writing for children is different to writing for adults?
What is language?
Is poetry a different language to a novel or a short story?
Translation is reproduction. How would you respond?
What is an accent? How do they arise?
What is the difference between Chinese whispers and translation?
What is the link between art and reality?
What makes a language modern?
Why do some languages have so many tenses yet others manage with very little grammar?
Which person, or sort of person, in the past would you most like to interview, and why?
What can historians not find out about the past?
How could new information affect the arguments in your submitted written work?
To what extent does a country's culture dictate a language's vocabulary?
What are the difficulties in translating books like the Bible?
Imagine we had no records about the past at all, except everything to do with sport – how much of the past could we find out about?
What causes a language to evolve? Can this be stopped? How?
What would a historian find interesting about the place where you live?
Which historical figure, or type of figure, would you like to meet and why?
Which French or German poetry have you read?
Who is your favourite author? Which of their other works have you read?
Which books have you read in your language?
Is there such a thing as an immoral book?
12+ weeks
8-12 weeks
4-6 weeks
1-2 weeks
the week of
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Book Mock Interview →Watch & Learn
Shows an Oxford-style History source discussion and tutor-candidate exchange.
Shows how Modern Languages tutors use literary and linguistic discussion in an interview setting.
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Further Reading
by E. H. Carr
A classic starting point for thinking about evidence, interpretation and the historian's role.
by John Tosh
Useful for understanding historical method, sources and argument construction.
by Marc Bloch
A concise and reflective introduction to how historians ask questions of the past.
by David Bellos
Excellent preparation for translation, language and cultural-transfer questions.
by Guy Deutscher
A readable route into language, culture and the risks of overclaiming linguistic determinism.
by University of Oxford
Official Oxford resource hub for extending language and literature interests beyond the classroom.
by University of Oxford
Official Oxford resource hub for historical enquiry and source-led preparation.
by Faculty of Medieval and Modern Languages, University of Oxford
Accessible Oxford MML blog with posts on modern languages, literature, translation and admissions.
by University of Oxford
Useful for students taking or considering Spanish and for modelling close literary discussion.
by BBC Radio 4
Good for building breadth across historical periods while listening for scholarly disagreement.