Help! I’ve been volunteered to do a mock interview for Cambridge (English)

[Lingles]

My experience was being pooled by Kings 30 years ago! (And no there’s no-one better they can ask).

in my interview I was shown the first draft and the final version of an unseen poem and was asked “why do you think he made these changes?’. I would like to repeat this exercise but don’t have any materials - can anyone suggest?

any other tips would be gratefully received.

Hopeful bump

My DD found this website good pre-interview.
myheplus.com/

Why is the candidate hoping to get out of the experience?

I think you ought to be really honest and just say, look, this is just interview practice - it might be totally different from what you experience at Cambridge, so please don't be thrown. We're just practising having a conversation.

There is loads of good advice on interviews and what to expect on The Student Room. Sometimes they have admissions tutors on there giving advice.

That said, I've done admissions at Cambridge and I think yes, it's common to discuss an extract or a text. Questions tend to be open-ended; IME this is sometimes something that throws candidates who have been taught to believe there is a single right answer and you must not deviate from it.

I don't think I can see myself asking 'why do you think he made these changes'? I might ask 'what effect do these changes have'?

Basically, you want to be asking open questions that will require the candidate to pay close attention to the text, and justify what they are saying.

Ideally, the text(s) you discuss ought to be reasonably obscure. It's fine if the candidate happens to know them, but they should not be on the syllabus (!) of any exam board.

Sorry, should be 'What is the candidate hoping to get'. Clearly, one thing I can't advise on is writing a coherent sentence before I've had my coffee.

That's a really good exercise and gives the student something tangible to focus on.... More than 30 years ago it was just crusty old bluffers wanting to discuss their own personal favourites......
Sorry if this is obvious but I would always read the poems out loud, if allowed, or at least out loud in my head, in order to detect spoken as well as on the page nuances.
Perhaps more important than anything is that you are instilling confidence. Good Luck Op!

That's a really nasty and unfair thing to say. Rude to all the people who interviewed at that time, too.

That was the exercise set for me in 1989!
so I guess you are either both right or both wrong!

My problem is lack of examples. I’m now a lawyer so don’t spend my day analysing this sort of language :)

Here's an example of a first draft and then the final poem. sharonbryanpoet.com/2018/10/23/drafts-of-elizabeth-bishops-one-art/

I had two interviewers there who were both being (deliberately?) obnoxious and slightly aggressive in their questioning. I actually think the most helpful kind of interview practice includes that kind of thing. In an ideal world interviewers wouldn’t do that but 🤷‍♀️ maybe they’re trying to see a response to pressure.

An practice interview with only friendly fair questions is not so helpful.

I run oxbridge interviews for my school and I wouldn’t do the whole look-at-a-poem thing (which I did do at my own Cam interview in the 90s) as instead they have a pre-interview written exercise. Instead ask questions (they don’t need to be too hard; eg why English? is a good starting point). You’ll find some online. Ask for their personal statement in advance and ask them about the reading they say they’ve done. This is esp important as v often teens haven’t done the reading and it’s useful for them as they need to be caught out on this.
enjoy!

When interviewed about five years ago, I was given an exercise something like that (and was given the texts shortly beforehand to read through and think about, not presented them stone-cold in the interview), but I was also asked what I was reading at the moment and expected to talk about that in a vaguely analytic manner, and there were some more general questions — can't remember exactly what they were but something along the lines of what certain types of literature were for, or why it's worth analysing them, something like that.

That was the subject interview, which seemed to be assessing my ability to talk about literature in a supervision-like conversation — the other interview was a little broader but I think they wanted to see my interest in the subject there as well, so the candidate needs to be able to get their interest over in a more general way. Which, if you're interested in the subject, is mostly a matter of getting yourself comfortable with interacting with people you don't know, who you're probably a little intimidated by.

Fantastic!
thanks so much!

Genuinely nothing unpleasant intended!.Just reporting my personal experience and no disrespect to anyone, just saying this kind of exercise a great idea. It was just one example in one college on one day not slamming the entire system.

There are still a lot of colleges that do the 'look at a text' interview, despite including a pre-interview written exercise.

Apologies, I was being overly defensive (not so much of Cambridge, but in an 'but that was the 90s, that's yesterday, of course they were young and hip ...' kind of way. ).

Yep I did a written test but still had the here's-a-poem task (as above) — though as I said that was half a decade ago. It's difficult to know what to expect as each college is different, it changes over time, and I think individual interviewers have latitude too, so I guess unless you can get very recent, specific experiences (maybe from thestudentroom?) you have to prepare to roll with and respond to whatever's asked of you, rather than preparing for specific tasks.

DD sat the C. Assessment today. She is expecting to discuss in her interview her assessment, her submitted essays and her personal statement. Don’t know how much time you get as an interviewer to look at all that but it should build up a picture? Perhaps for a mock interview you need to have access to that information?

My daughter had an English interview ( and offer - and is now really enjoying studying there in her first term -) last year. She had two interviews, one looking at a poem and one a prose extract with about 30 mins prep time before each. They also went into quite a lot of depth on the texts she'd referred to in her PS.

They also went into quite a lot of depth on the texts she'd referred to in her PS.

Mmm, same here (MFL rather than English), and also asked 'What are you reading for pleasure at the moment?' Then after she'd waffled for a bit about a fairly lightweight book she was halfway through, one of the interviewers said 'I actually include that book in lectures sometimes for year 2; what do you think of the main premise of X and how it compares with book Y in your personal statement?'

So warn your candidate not to bluff. Sod's law says they'll be talking to someone who just wrote a paper on it.

I think it’s as much to expose the candidate to an adult he/she doesn’t know and give them that experience of being “on show”. If they’ve written something on their statement, ask them something around that as an opener? Get them to talk about books/characters they like/think work well and ones they don’t?