Hi everyone, is anyone able to give me any indication of what to expect at an Oxford linguistics interview? As its quite a rare course I'm really struggling to find any resources or accounts of what the process is like! If anyone knows anything about the sort of questions asked, help would be greatly appreciated!! I have an interview for PPL.

Reply 9006

J.owen98

Original post by Crazecatlady

Got an Interview for physics!!

Congrats! When did you hear from them and what college did you apply to?? I'm still waiting on Merton for physics

Reply 9007

sqr00t

2

Original post by firstclassflyer

I only have a BTEC in catering but i heard that if i show them my emirates first class lounge members card, they will give me a place. I hate the fact that all these smelly peasants have been given an interview, I mean they dont even have an emporio armani phone case.

Emirates first class lounge members card is nothing. Just a card. EnA phone cases are faked on a mass scale. Also, I'm smelling a wannabe itslavishbitch.

Good luck in your endeavours in uni life, you won't be able to literally show your d to graduate. (Smelling a dropout)

Reply 9008

sqr00t

2

Cheers mate, how goes your application?

Reply 9009

Aquaxo

12

Original post by misschievous2505

i came across this question while preparing for my chemistry interview at Oxford.
How many grains of sand are there in the world?
can anybody help?

Hey, I'm no chemist but I remember reading this somewhere. Essentially, they are looking at the way think and how you make a (logical) guess. So if you say okay, how many grains of sand are there per square metre? How many square metres in an average beach? Are there any other places sand can be found? Plucking rough numbers out of the air would be absolutely fine with this; they just want to see if you can visualise how small things make up bigger things, which is obviously crucial for chemistry. I'm applying for Law so I'm probably no help whatsoever, but hopefully this gives you an insight into how you could answer that question :-)

Reply 9010

Crazecatlady

6

Original post by J.owen98

Congrats! When did you hear from them and what college did you apply to?? I'm still waiting on Merton for physics

I literally heard back this morning! I applied to Lady Margaret Hall :biggrin:

Reply 9011

Ethereal World

3

Original post by misschievous2505

i came across this question while preparing for my chemistry interview at Oxford.
How many grains of sand are there in the world?
can anybody help?

Total number of stars in universe/1000000

:wink:

Reply 9012

sqr00t

2

Good luck with your interviews!

Reply 9013

ForeignStudent34

1

Original post by Aquaxo

Hey, I'm no chemist but I remember reading this somewhere. Essentially, they are looking at the way think and how you make a (logical) guess. So if you say okay, how many grains of sand are there per square metre? How many square metres in an average beach? Are there any other places sand can be found? Plucking rough numbers out of the air would be absolutely fine with this; they just want to see if you can visualise how small things make up bigger things, which is obviously crucial for chemistry. I'm applying for Law so I'm probably no help whatsoever, but hopefully this gives you an insight into how you could answer that question :-)

I agree with your solution . They are trying to have a grasp of how you solve problems

Reply 9014

Plagioclase

21

Original post by misschievous2505

i came across this question while preparing for my chemistry interview at Oxford.
How many grains of sand are there in the world?
can anybody help?

That's an example of a Fermi problem. You need to think of a logical series of steps that might allow you to arrive at a result that might be within an order of magnitude or two from the real result. For instance, you could start by thinking about the average size of a grain of sand, making assumptions about packing to come up with a figure for how many grains of sand you've got in a cubic metre and so on... but there are many ways you could arrive at the result. What you're being tested on isn't the number you end up with at the end, but the way you've tried to arrive at that result.

If you want some practice, I think this website is great (good fun too, I definitely recommend this for everyone going for a science interview).

Reply 9015

username1421435

17

I know it sounds silly but will we have internet access for interviews?

Reply 9016

misschievous2505

3

Original post by Plagioclase

That's an example of a Fermi problem. You need to think of a logical series of steps that might allow you to arrive at a result that might be within an order of magnitude or two from the real result. For instance, you could start by thinking about the average size of a grain of sand, making assumptions about packing to come up with a figure for how many grains of sand you've got in a cubic metre and so on... but there are many ways you could arrive at the result. What you're being tested on isn't the number you end up with at the end, but the way you've tried to arrive at that result.

If you want some practice, I think this website is great (good fun too, I definitely recommend this for everyone going for a science interview).