We asked our top Oxbridge-educated mentors the hardest question they were asked in their interviews:

“People keep saying English Literature is a useless subject. Why are they wrong?”

Adam Goodbody
Hertford College, Oxford

Asked and answered in French “It is clear that history shapes literature, but can you explain to what extent literature shapes history?”

Anya Davies
New College, Oxford

“What period do you think this was written in and why?”

Eloise Poulton
Trinity College, Cambridge

“My tutor gave me a plate with a bowl over it and told me he was going to show me five objects under the lid, and that I'd have 30 seconds to think and then 1 minute to relate the item to theology, and the items were horse hair, a bird skull, a tibetan prayer wheel and a bust of aristotle.

I was then asked after that if communism was incompatible for religion.”

Hugo McPherson
Brasenose College, Oxford

“Why should students of literature care about Coronation Street?”

Rosalind Brody
Christ Church, Oxford

“Here are lines and dots. How would you play it?”

Conall McHugh
New College, Oxford

“Can literature exist without history?”

Camilla Dunhill
New College, Oxford

“I’ve seen the books on your Personal Statement. Right, what else have you read?”

Henry Faber
Balliol, Oxford

“What does the phrase political landscape mean in geographical terms?”

Rafe Studholme
St. Edmund Hall, Oxford