Aspiring Oxford undergrads get a feel of question paper

Hyderabad: Students, who aspire to be part of the undergraduate class at Oxford University, have got a sample interview questionnaire to familiarise themselves with the interview process.

The questionnaire quizzes law students about road safety which aims at finding how the candidates justify their positions. Similarly, the students opting for medicine have to rank countries according to their crude mortality rate. The candidates applying for philosophy have to defend their opinion on a given argument. 

Universities in the state generally conduct entrance exams which are multiple choice question format and test the language skills.  Sriya Raj, a student said, “I wrote the entrance exam for journalism in EFLU and the questions were related to current affairs. The entrance exams were checking our knowledge in all forms of the media like the print and television.”

Similarly, students applying for language courses said that they are often given compositions or quizzed about famous authors and their works. Philosophy students are asked about famous philosophers and theories. 

Meghna Deepu, an integrated student of physics, said, “Our entrance exam follows the same pattern of the medical entrance exam with problem-solving questions in physics, maths, chemistry and we also have questions related to biology. They are all in objective format.”

Students who clear the entrance are called for interviews. Science students are exempted from the interview.  Accor-ding to professors, interviews are purely subjective and are conducted to understand the candidate better. 

Padmaja Rani, a professor, said, “We look at the student’s past achievements. We want to understand their communicative skills and also their ability to think. They need not know the answers at the interview.”

Students appearing for art, dance and other courses are asked to carry the portfolios to the interview.