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Chemistry interviews

Hi! Just got an interview from Oxford :biggrin:
Just wondering if anyone has any mock questions I can use to train? Thanks !!
Do you may conduct an interview? whith chemists? why do you want to ask mock questions? ask someone like me who wants to know something exactly. May I suggest some questions?
Original post by Kallisto
Do you may conduct an interview? whith chemists? why do you want to ask mock questions? ask someone like me who wants to know something exactly. May I suggest some questions?


What?
Original post by Millymd
What?


First I have to know who do you ask questions exactly. Is it a chemistry student? or even a chemist with a (certain) profession?
Original post by Kallisto
First I have to know who do you ask questions exactly. Is it a chemistry student? or even a chemist with a (certain) profession?


Anyone who has done an oxbridge chemistry interview or someone who knows about it.
Original post by Millymd
Anyone who has done an oxbridge chemistry interview or someone who knows about it.


Do I have this right? do you conduct an interview with an interviewer?

If that is the case, these would be my questions:

Did you have learn from the interview anything?
What was your feeling during the interview?
What did you fascinate most of all?

There were more questions, if its a person who is interest or engaged in chemistry.
Reply 6
I've seen a live interview for chemistry for Cambridge and he got a candle out and asked loads of questions about the candle like work out how long this will burn for ect. Didn't matter if you got the answers right because the questions weren't based on anything you would know but they just wanted to see you have logical ways of attempting o work it out. But it was definitely more of a test than an interview.


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Original post by Kallisto
Do I have this right? do you conduct an interview with an interviewer?

If that is the case, these would be my questions:

Did you have learn from the interview anything?
What was your feeling during the interview?
What did you fascinate most of all?

There were more questions, if its a person who is interest or engaged in chemistry.


Lol wtf are you on?
Original post by Plantagenet Crown
It's quite hard to say because each college and interviewer will be different. My first interview for Oxford Chemistry 3 years ago was all to do with maths: differentiating sin and cos graphs and A level trigonometry.

The second interview consisted of a huge organic molecule and being asked to draw the mechanism for electron pushing to complete it.

So yeah, despite the stereotype, I wasn't asked any of those weird, abstract questions like how many atoms in a brussel sprout etc


Ok thanks!

Original post by L'Evil Fish
Lol wtf are you on?


I don't think he's understood :P
Lol I don't think he did.

I wanna know too :eek:
Original post by L'Evil Fish
Lol wtf are you on?


By the look of it I have minsinterpreted the topic.

Original post by Millymd
(...)
I don't think he's understood :P


I am afraid, its true. What the term interview means exactly in terms of University or something which is added with? is it not a 'classical' interview how its conducted in journalism?
Reply 11
Original post by Kallisto
By the look of it I have minsinterpreted the topic.



I am afraid, its true. What the term interview means exactly in terms of University or something which is added with? is it not a 'classical' interview how its conducted in journalism?


I'm pretty sure you're thinking of another kind of interview. What people are discussing here is going to a university and then being interviewed by someone from the university who specialises in chemistry. It's not like a journalistic interview; it's more to see whether you're good at the subject. They give you chemistry questions to look at and see how you solve them. This kind of interview is more of an assessment, and the university uses it to help them decide who they want to offer places to.
(edited 9 years ago)
Tell me about some of the activities you regularly partake to maintain your interest and ability in Chemistry?
What was the last book you read? (If you say a title that you mentioned on your personal statement, it makes you look like a week candidate)
Why do you want to study Chemistry?
What area of Chemistry interests you most and why?
Talk to me about an area of popular Chemistry (i.e. in the news or recent discovery) for 1 minute?
On the open day, they mentioned a question from a previous round of admissions: you know Avogadro’s number is 6.02x1023, but can you suggest a method to prove this?
Original post by Blazar
I'm pretty sure you're thinking of another kind of interview. What people are discussing here is going to a university and then being interviewed by someone from the university who specialises in chemistry. It's not like a journalistic interview; it's more to see whether you're good at the subject. They give you chemistry questions to look at and see how you solve them. This kind of interview is more of an assessment, and the university uses it to help them decide who they want to offer places to.


Thank you for clear words. I have really thought that the thread starter, Millymd, is an interviewer who ask chemistry students or people with chemistry profession to pulish it on TSR. That was an embarrassing misunderstanding. :facepalm:

By all means I hope that you will find your ideal chemistry study, Millymd.
Reply 14
Original post by Millymd
x


I agree largely with what Plantagenet Crown has said there's a good chance you'll have to do a bit of maths, as the course is quite mathematical, particularly in the first year. Other questions are likely to be applications of familiar concepts in slightly more complex settings (e.g. the arrow pushing, but on a larger molecule, that was described above).

Original post by Plantagenet Crown
So yeah, despite the stereotype, I wasn't asked any of those weird, abstract questions like how many atoms in a brussel sprout etc


Of course, how many atoms there are in a Brussels sprout is quite an easy back-of-an-envelope question. Just assume it's all water, have a reasonable guess at the weight, and make sure you know Avogadro's number to within an order of magnitude. :wink:

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