Cambridge HSPS Interviews

The Cambridge HSPS interview tests how you think about questions you have not seen. The department says your two pieces of written work will most likely shape the conversation, and some Colleges also set a one-hour essay for shortlisted applicants.

This guide sets out a seven-step method for thinking out loud, then applies it to every kind of HSPS question: defending and extending your written work, reading an unseen text, image or object, weighing competing explanations, defining concepts such as power, the state, culture and identity, and testing an argument or a table of data.

Inside: how the interview works from official Cambridge pages (format, College assessments at King’s and Newnham, what the department looks for), twenty practice questions across politics, sociology, social anthropology, international relations and political economy, two annotated mocks and a practice plan. Every question is invented for practice, and official pages are linked throughout.

Included free in the Interview Pack and the Applicant Pass. For economics interviews across seven courses, see the Guide to Oxbridge Economics Interviews.