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So you want to go to oxford? Tell me about a banana

I would like to know whether such bizare questions are asked during interviews at oxbridge for which no preperation is possible. I am slightly worried after reading articles such as the following:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/education/universityeducation/3198006/Oxbridge-candidates-asked-Seedless-or-non-seedless-grapefruit.html

Its a recent article, amongst several, so do the media really lie so blatently or is there some truth there. Can people back up there opinion with some sort of proof or experience plz. thanks

Reply 1

Sanyore

14

Some points raised in these articles are legitimate; but they usually miss something out. In a recent article, a rejected economics applicant was quoted as saying "How do they expect me to know about something as obscure as Game Theory?"; according to a few comments though, it's not very obscure in economics at all.

In addition to that, most of these bizarre questions are designed to see how you think; not necessarily whether you get the correct answer.

The media lie. Every time one of these articles come up, there's a pretty big furore on TSR about how most of it is concentrated ********.

Reply 2

Spotty Dog

15

I can't tell you if there is any truth in it, but I can tell you that monkeys eat bananas upside down. :smile:

Reply 3

JoeJBB

13

All these questions were really asked, but taken completely out of context.

Your interview is very specific for you. I don't know about the other questions, but 'tell me about a banana' was asked to a science applicant who'd written in his PS about how he enjoyed doing his biology coursework on fruit, such as bananas. The admissions tutor at a cambridge college open day told me that

So don't worry :smile:

Reply 4

BJack

19

dadude

I would like to know whether such bizare questions are asked during interviews at oxbridge for which no preperation is possible.

These questions are always taken out of context to make them seem more bizarre than they really are. Perhaps the geographer wrote about how much he'd enjoyed doing a performance of A Midsummer Night's Dream in his personal statement (or something along those lines), so the tutor wondered why it was relevant, etc.

Reply 5

Y__

13

Now Oxbridge Applications, an independent education consultancy set up to help applicants fulfil their potential in the Oxbridge interviews, has published some of the questions that students are being faced with as Oxbridge strives to find only the best candidates to offer places to.

I stopped reading there. They're probably stretching the facts a bit to get more people to buy their expensive preparation stuff? I am at Cambridge now, and none of the people I have spoken to have been asked something like that.

I'm not saying it doesn't happen at all (how would I know?), but if I were you, I wouldn't worry about this kind of stuff.

(It is an interesting question, though. I think I would rather be a grapefruit with seeds than a seedless one...)

Reply 6

Noémie

17

the link says "rapefruit" :|

anyway, i have no point to make here.
if they think it's a good way to gauge your abilities then you just try to answer it. it's all part of the game anyway =/

Reply 7

yodude888

16

Noémie

the link says "rapefruit" :|

anyway, i have no point to make here.
if they think it's a good way to gauge your abilities then you just try to answer it. it's all part of the game anyway =/

Haha good so I wasn't the only person to see "rapefruit" and want to comment about it then leave.

Reply 8

greenapplekitty

As a poster above said, they are taken out of context and aimed at people with good knowledge of the area they are questioning. Asking any regular student if he would like to have seeds or not is stupid, but asking a medicine or biology applicant would force them to argue why having seeds is better for survival of the species etc. I think they are great questions...

Reply 9

Annaconda

17

Spotty Dog

I can't tell you if there is any truth in it, but I can tell you that monkeys eat bananas upside down. :smile:

as in the monkeys are upside down or the abananas are?

but i hope i get asked this, i have a good answer :smile:

Reply 10

wizz_kid

16

They jus hype up the Oxbridge interviews.

Reply 11

Y__

13

Okay, I had another look at the questions. They are not that bad, are they? The Midsummer Night's Dream one seems a bit random, but apart from that, I don't see why any one of those should not be asked at an interview.

Reply 12

Aimee91

At college we got told biology students get asked whats the difference between a potato and an egg.
Luckily Im not applying for biology or to oxford for that matter =]

Reply 13

*AngelFish*

10

I expect they were asked in context, the media have to get stories somehow =/

Reply 14

olly_springs

9

AHHHHH DON'T ANSWER THIS THREAD.

I went for a week at Cambridge on their 6th Form Law Conference and the Admissions Tutor said that people have lost their place at Cambridge before for posting comments about their interviews on TSR. So don't do it, or end up somewhere rubbish like UEA :smile:

Reply 15

JoeJBB

13

Y__

Okay, I had another look at the questions. They are not that bad, are they? The Midsummer Night's Dream one seems a bit random, but apart from that, I don't see why any one of those should not be asked at an interview.

Well like a couple of us have been saying, none of these questions would have been asked out of blue, they will be related to what the applicant studied at A level/put in his personal statement etc. etc.

For example, I won't be surprised if I get asked to explain why theatre and politics are very closely related - which might seem a bit random to most, but as I've dropped out of a theatre degree to reapply for politics, I can talk about it intellectually for quite a while.

Similarly, I'll be a bit lost if I get asked to analyse the governmental structures of Indonesia, but if an applicant has spent a lot of time there, it wouldn't be a bizarre question at all.

J

Well...

Spotty Dog

I can't tell you if there is any truth in it, but I can tell you that monkeys eat bananas upside down. :smile:

I can remove the ambiguity by adding that "when monkeys eat bananas, they hold them the opposite way up to humans, so therefore they eat them 'upside down'". :p: