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what was your most annoying, hard, or just plain weird interview question?

"If I were a junior doctor what would I do?"... "What would I actually do though?"... "Yes but what would I be doing?"

"On your work experience, how did you show respect for the people you were caring for?" I stared blankly, said something like "That's an interesting question", attempted to pause in a thoughtful kind of way while panicking madly in my head and then said "Sorry I don't know" :redface:

It's not that hard, but they phrased it in a weird way (that's the translated version!) and I just couldn't think.

"Should surgeons have to pass practical exams to qualify?" A difficult question because I said yes and then couldn't think of anything more to add. Having since read Complications I can think of quite a lot to say but unfortunately at the time my mind was blank.

These are just a few, I'm sure there were more!

Reply 21

invisibleforest

i also hate the "think a time when you failed at something/had to make a difficult decision/etcetc" ones. >.>

um ... "estimate the volume of all the gas in this room"

and there was another one where the interviewer asked "how long do doctors work for?" expecting something about the working time directive i think ... and i said "until they retire" >.>

Reply 22

graemematt

12

Oh I remember I got "What makes a bad doctor?"

There are far far too many answers to that question!!

Reply 23

aminalia89

13

"calculate how much co2 in litres is released when one mole of petrol is burnt" and "how would you go about doing cancer screening in a population" oh and " ihave two mystery substances one is sugar the other salt what tests could you conduct in a kitchen to find out which is which without tasting them" and finally "what is the most common autosomal recessive genetic condition in the uk." i guessed the last one correctly lol and i got the first one right, the 2nd was just plain guesswork and and the kitchen one took a little bit of prodding because i was being a bit absent minded.

Reply 24

m197

11

aminalia89

ihave two mystery substances one is sugar the other salt what tests could you conduct in a kitchen to find out which is which without tasting them

what the heck is the answer!? burn them, sugar would go black??? :confused:

Reply 25

AWZC

13

"tell me about where you live" - now that was a tricky question, especially for an icebreaker. Also, "tell me about your friends".

Reply 26

Cynicism 101

11

aminalia89

"calculate how much co2 in litres is released when one mole of petrol is burnt" and "how would you go about doing cancer screening in a population" oh and " ihave two mystery substances one is sugar the other salt what tests could you conduct in a kitchen to find out which is which without tasting them" and finally "what is the most common autosomal recessive genetic condition in the uk." i guessed the last one correctly lol and i got the first one right, the 2nd was just plain guesswork and and the kitchen one took a little bit of prodding because i was being a bit absent minded.

Holy ****, was that UCL?

Reply 27

smalltownboy

14

Can the Holocaust ever be justified?

As it was a Cambridge interview, I wanted to try and give an objective view, but trying to argue for it was ridiculously hard. I ended up explaining how the Holocaust was never initially planned but just a plan to emigrate that got out of hand but was told I was going "down the wrong track". I would love to hear what the other interviewees said...

Reply 28

aminalia89

13

paranoid_IB

Holy ****, was that UCL?

no cambridge

Reply 29

aminalia89

13

malaz_197

what the heck is the answer!? burn them, sugar would go black??? :confused:

yeah i gave caramelisation as an answer but what he wanted me to say was that i should dissolve them in water and then see which one would carry an electrical current :eek:

Reply 30

m197

11

aminalia89

yeah i gave caramelisation as an answer but what he wanted me to say was that i should dissolve them in water and then see which one would carry an electrical current :eek:

my goodness! didnt he realise that he gave you the wrong setting??? you are in a kitchen not a lab!!!!!! that would have made him look pretty stupid!

Reply 31

doctorhannah

I (as a NON-physicist) got asked, "How do planes fly?" "But then [after I'd tried to explain some aerodynamics], how do they fly upside down?" "So how do space shuttles re-enter the atmosphere where the air is so thin?"
Grr.
I also got given a skull and a sort of swab thing and asked, "How would you stop a nosebleed?" So I just poked it about into the nasal cavity and said, "Like that!"
It was odd. (And it goes without saying that those 2 were at Oxford!)

At Birmingham, I got asked all about the training scheme within in NHS, which I had expected, and he threw in questions about who sets registrar exams (which someone mentioned before in an earlier post) and how long does it take to become a consultant. Then he said, "Have you ever failed an exam?"
And I thought for a moment - really confused - and then said, "No, why?"
And he said, "Well, the vast majority of people don't pass their registrar/consultant/Royal College exams till the 2nd or 3rd time. Will you be able to cope with this?"

I mean, as if you're going to say no! :wink:

Reply 32

mhairi_10

At glasgow i was asked, i see you've done work experience in a lab, why do you not want to be a scientist? To which I replied about of course wanting to be academically challenged but wanting to have a career which was focused on building relationships with people and all that kind of thing. Then they asked me, well lots of careers let you work with people, why do you not want to be a social worker? Which i thought was a little strange since i had kind of already spent five minutes explaining my reasons for wanting to medicine... then after that they asked me what translational research was, which i know now but at the time was completely clueless... apart from that though i thought the interviews were quite fun :]

Reply 33

*The One

1

Interviewer: My students don't understand why we need to go into the Krebs Cycle in such detail - with reference to your first day in A and E, do you understand why?

Ouch!

Reply 34

arpeggio

12

*The One

Interviewer: My students don't understand why we need to go into the Krebs Cycle in such detail - with reference to your first day in A and E, do you understand why?

Ouch!

What did you say?!

Reply 35

ellieluna

These are all very funny :smile:

Not really related but my friend got sidetracked into a disussion about Emily Dickinson at her Law interview.

Reply 36

*The One

1

arpeggio

What did you say?!

This was Oxford in case your wondering. Well I gazed with poise at first as if I was actually thinking about the question, then started waffling about how energy and therefore respiration is key for people who have experienced some trauma or serious deterioration in health. I think I did more of explaining the Krebs cycle than actaully answering the question because the interviewer asked the same question again! Then i said I wasn't quite sure, to which she replied 'neither are my students'.

Reply 37

arpeggio

12

*The One

This was Oxford in case your wondering. Well I gazed with poise at first as if I was actually thinking about the question, then started waffling about how energy and therefore respiration is key for people who have experienced some trauma or serious deterioration in health. I think I did more of explaining the Krebs cycle than actaully answering the question because the interviewer asked the same question again! Then i said I wasn't quite sure, to which she replied 'neither are my students'.

What a horrible question! I hate it when you answer and then they repeat the same question again - I think that happened to me quite a few times :s-smilie: