The questions Oxford wants you to answer
Demystifying the interview process for admission into the celebrated university
Oxford University released on Wednesday a set of sample interview questions, and answers, in an attempt to debunk “myths” surrounding the process as the application deadline looms.
The prestigious university has released its annual sample of questions as part of a continuing bid to demystify its admissions process.
Why do older siblings do better on IQ tests than their younger counterparts? What exactly do you think is involved in blaming someone? These are among the questions that candidates may face in an Oxford interview.
“Interviews will be an entirely new experience for most students, and we know many prospective applicants are already worried about being in an unfamiliar place and being questioned by people they have not met – so to help students to become familiar with the type of questions they might get asked we release these real examples,” said Dr Samina Khan, Director of Admissions and Outreach at Oxford.
Dr Khan explained that the questions are designed to give candidates a chance to show their real ability and potential and not to “catch students out.”
“No matter what kind of educational background or opportunities you have had, the interview should be an opportunity to show off your interest and ability in your chosen subject, since they are not about reciting what you already know,” Dr Khan said.
“It is often best to start responding by making very obvious observations and build up discussion from there – solving the problem quickly is less important than showing how you use information and analysis to get there,” Dr Khan explained.
“We now have mock interviews online, video diaries made by admissions tutors during the interview process, and lots of example questions to help students to familiarise themselves with what the process is – and isn’t – about,” said Dr Khan.
Here is a sample of some of the questions and answers:
1 What makes a novel or play ‘political’?
This is the sort of question that could emerge from a student’s personal statement, where, in speaking about their engagement with literature and culture of the lan- guage they want to study, they state a keen interest in works (of whatever type they mention, such as a novel, play or film) that are ‘political’.
We might start off by discussing the specific work that they cite (something that isn’t included in their A-level syllabus), so they have chance to start off on something concrete and familiar, asking, for instance, ‘in what ways?’, ‘why?’, ‘why might someone not enjoy it for the same reason?’.
We’d then look to test the extent of their intellectual curiosity and capacities for critical engagement by broadening the questioning out to be more conceptually orientated and invite them to make comparisons between things that they’ve read/seen (in whatever language).
So, in posing the overall question ‘what makes this political?’ we’d want the candidate to start thinking about what one means in applying the label: what aspects of a work does it evoke? Is it a judgment about content or style?
Could it be seen in and of itself a value judgment? How useful is it as a label? What if we said that all art is, in fact, political?
What about cases where an author denies that their work is political, but critics assert that it is – is it purely a question of subjective interpretation? And so on.
The interviewers would provide prompt questions to help guide the discussion. A strong candidate would show ready willingness and very good ability to engage and develop their ideas in conversation.
It would be perfectly fine for someone to change their mind in the course of the discussion or come up with a thought that contradicted something they’d said before – we want people to think flexibly and be willing to consider different perspectives; ideally, they would recognise themselves that they were changing their viewpoint, and such awareness could indicate aptitude for sustained, careful reflection rather than a ‘scattergun’ effect of lots of different points that aren’t developed or considered in a probing way.
About 1 in 4 deaths in the UK is due to some form of cancer, yet in the Philippines the figure is only around 1 in 10. What factors might underlie this difference? 2
This is a typically open question, with no single ‘correct’ answer, which aims to stimulate the sort of discussion that might be encountered in a tutorial teaching session. The discussion could take any one of a number of directions, according to the candidate’s interests.
Some candidates will ask useful clarifying questions, such as ‘Where do these data come from, and how reliable are they?’, or ‘What is the average life expectancy in these parts of the world?’. Some candidates will seize on the idea that various aspects of the typical lifestyle in the UK are inherently unhealthy, which can make for an interesting discussion in itself.
Others, especially if they appreciate that life expectancy in the Philippines is substantially lower than in the UK, will realise that other causes of death are more common in the developing world, and that this is the major factor that gives rise to the difference alluded to in the question.
This probes selection criteria including problem-solving, critical thinking, intellectual curiosity, communication skills, ability to listen and compatibility with the tutorial format.
3 What exactly do you think is involved in blaming someone?
Questions like this help draw out a candidate’s ability to think carefully and precisely about a familiar concept, evaluating proposals, coming up with counter-examples, disentangling considerations, and being creative in proposing alternative approaches.
Obviously the notion of blame is an important one in moral theory but insofar as blame is an emotion- al attitude it also brings in issues in the philosophy of mind. Debates about the nature of blame are going on right now in philosophy so the question is also partly a prompt for doing some philosophy together – which is exactly what we hope to achieve in a tutorial.
With a question like this we’re not looking for a right answer but instead whether the candidate can be creative in coming up with examples and suggestions, and can think critically and carefully through their implications. So, for example, many candidates start out by suggesting that for A to blame B, A would have to think that B had done something wrong.
Many might also make the point that B needn’t actually have done anything wrong. We can use this opening suggestion to consider a simple theory of blame: blame is just thinking that someone has done something wrong.
When this is put to candidates, most recognize that blame seems to involve more than this. This shows their capacity to evaluate a proposal, and we’ll typically ask them to illustrate their verdict with a counter-example: a case where someone thinks someone has done something wrong but doesn’t blame them.
Candidates will then be encouraged to offer and test out more sophisticated proposals about the nature of blame. Some might suggest that blame involves a more complex judgement than just that someone has done something wrong.
Others instead might argue that real blame requires feelings of some kind on the part of the blamer: anger, or resentment, for example. And again we can put these proposals to the test by looking for counterexamples. Good interviews will often generate all kinds of interesting and revealing discussions that show a candidate’s ability for analytical thought: for example about selfblame, cases of blame where the blamer knew the blamed had done nothing wrong, and indeed cases of blaming something inanimate (such as a faulty printer or phone).
A large study appears to show that older siblings consistently score higher than younger siblings on IQ tests. Why would this be? 4
This is a question that really asks students to think about lots of different aspects of psychology, and we guide students when discussing it to think about both scientific factors such as maternal age (mothers are older when younger siblings are born – could that play a role?) and observational analysis about how birth order might affect behaviour and therefore performance on IQ tests.
It’s a great question because students begin from the point they are most comfortable with, and we gradually add more information to see how they respond: for example, noting that the pattern holds true even taking into account things like maternal age.
This can lead them to think about what the dynamics of being an older sibling might be that produce such an effect – they might suggest that having more undivided parental attention in the years before a sibling comes along makes a difference, for example.
Then we introduce the further proviso that the effect isn’t observable in only children – there is something particular to being an older sibling that produces it. Eventually most students arrive at the conclusion that being an older sibling and having to teach a younger sibling certain skills and types of knowledge benefits their own cognitive skills (learning things twice, in effect).
But there isn’t really a ‘right’ answer and we are always interested to hear new explanations that we haven’t heard before. What we are interested in is the kinds of reasoning students use and the questions they ask about the study – what it takes into account, what it might not – that tells us about their suitability for the course.