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5 min read

8 Nov 2022

Carfax Consultants

3 min read

Oxbridge Interview Preparation: Useful Advice & Top Tips from our Preparation Day

On the last Saturday in October, Carfax hosted our annual Oxbridge Interview Preparation Day. With participants from the UAE and across Europe, interviewers and interviewees moved between virtual rooms to attend general information sessions, peer-to-peer questions and individual interviews, both subject and general.

What we always discover is that from feeling nervous at the start, as the day progresses candidates begin to relax and even enjoy being questioned and pushed beyond the bounds of their knowledge.

The preparation day was a truly successful, and our attendees finished up feeling more confident, prepared and ready to put their best foot forward on the big day! However, don't worry if you missed the event and still need our helping hand in the lead up to your interview - Carfax Consultants are here to help you. 

To help you get started, we wanted to share some useful advice and top tips from our Oxbridge Consultants and Applicants:
    
Useful advice from our Oxbridge consultants:

  • You don’t need to dive straight in: take a moment to collect your thoughts before responding to a question.
     
  • Make sure you vocalise your thought processes: your interviewers want to know how you approach a problem. They are not expecting you to know all the answers, so you need to ‘show your working’!
     
  • Don’t be afraid to change tack if you feel you’ve taken a wrong turning. It will show you are able to take on new material, learn from mistakes and are not intellectually rigid.
     
  • If a question takes you way out of your comfort zone, try not to panic and freeze up: keep talking and if possible steer the discussion towards something you do know about.
     
  • Practise, practise, practise! Ask your family to quiz you on your subject and your Personal Statement at the dinner table, on the school run, everywhere…!
     
  • Brush up on anything you’ve talked about in your Personal Statement, as you may well be asked about it.
     

We also gathered some reflections from the students that attended our Interview Preparation Day: 

"I felt panicked when asked questions I didn’t know anything about, so I’m going to practise with random questions. And accept that I won’t know the answers to everything!"

"I have to really focus on communicating my working: it’s not something I’m used to doing."

"I’m going to make sure I’m up-to-date with the latest news in my subject: I want to show how focused I am."

"I want to make sure my answers always relate back to the subject, and really showcase what I know."

"I will re-read my EPQ: I found I’d forgotten some of the detail."

"I realised I need to work on a specific type of question that I struggled to answer."
 

For more information on Interview Preparation with Carfax Consultants, please contact us: 

Email: enquiries@carfax-education
Tel: +971 4 438 5276

Click on the button below to start your education journey with Carfax Education today.

Our expert consultants and tutors are here to offer you very best in educational support.

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