Pre-Interview Reading

This page is for interview candidates who have been told in their interview invitation that they are required to read some preparatory material before their interview. If your interview invitation didn’t mention anything about pre-interview reading, then this does not apply to you.

How you will receive your pre-interview reading materials

The day before your interview (or the Friday before if your interview is on a Monday), a PDF file containing the passage(s) that you are required to read before your interview will appear in the bulleted list below on this page. You should download the relevant file(s) for your subject and save it on your computer.

Each file is protected with a password. You will not be able to open the file until you receive the password. This will be provided on the day of your interview in the Pre-Interview Reading Zoom Call (see below).

On the day of your interview

At the pre-interview reading start time given in your interview invitation email, you will need to join the Pre-Interview Reading Zoom Call. The link to join this will have been provided in the email inviting you to interview. If you join early, you will be kept in the waiting room until the scheduled time. At the scheduled start time, you will be let into the Zoom call and the host will give you the password to open your file (the password will appear in the Zoom Chat box via private message).

Once you have the password, you will be able to open your file. If you would like to print the passage, you may do so, although make sure that you have easy and quick access to a printer or it will eat into your reading time.

The host will then put you in a breakout room where there will be an invigilator and possibly a few other applicants. You should keep your camera on and your microphone off while you are in the breakout room. Please stay on the Zoom call until the end of your allotted reading time.

You are very welcome to take notes and to refer to these during your interview. You must NOT use the internet or any other source to seek information about this passage during your allotted reading time. If your passage is in a foreign language, please do NOT use a dictionary.

At the end of your reading time, the invigilator will call your name and remind you that your time is up (though you should also keep an eye on the time yourself to avoid overrunning). You should then leave the Zoom call and go to your interview by following the link in your interview invitation email.

Confidentiality Statement

Sharing details of your assigned pre-reading risks compromising our standards of admission and could harm the interpretation of your own performance. The College expects you to maintain confidentiality. Therefore, you must not disclose the content of any assigned pre-reading, admissions assessment or interview to other applicants or any commercial organisations at any point, either during the admissions process or while you are a student at the University of Cambridge. This includes, but is not limited to, communication indirectly or directly by email, websites, chat rooms and texts with other applicants. While we understand that you may wish to discuss your interviews with advisers at your school/college, you are requested not to share full details of any questions asked with them. The College will treat any breach of confidentiality as a very serious matter.

Recording and photography, by you or any third party, are strictly forbidden during interviews. Recording or photographing any part of your interviews will result in your application to Cambridge being cancelled. We will also report any such breach to UCAS.