2019年12月6日，牛津大学公布了2020年本科入学的面试样题，希望给即将参加2020本科入学面试的同学们提供一些参考。这对即将要参加牛津大学面试的学生来说，无疑是一个好消息，对于要参加其他大学面试的学生来说，也是一个模拟练习的机会。毕竟作为英国高校的标杆，牛津大学的入学面试题目，多少都会有一些导向性。

由于专业选择的差异，大多数即将参加牛津大学面试的学生，会经历2场，而整个面试期间，学生可以免费住在牛津的各学院。
 

牛津大学学院导师、认知神经科学Nick Yeung教授表示“每场面试，我希望达到这样的程度，即面试者不能马上知道答案。因为我们非常想看到的一方面是，学生不知道答案的情况下如何思考。当然了，我们导师也准备好了给他们提示，不希望看到任何人只是坐着几分钟，面试中我们会做的事情之一是给学生空间和时间来思考，如果学生坐在那有点困惑，我们可能会让他说出自己的思考过程，第一个想法是什么，然后顺着这一点往下推。”
 

所以，不要期望面试问题会有“标准参考答案”，所谓的“标准答案”，也未必是面试官所期望的结果。你的回答，一定要做到“有思考、有思想、有逻辑”。
 

话不多说，我们一起先来看看这几个样题：
 

地球科学
 

Subject: Earth Sciences(地球科学)
 

Interviewer: Professor David Pyle, Professor of Earth Sciences, Geodesy, Tectonics, Volcanology and Related Hazards
 

Question: Present the candidate with a rock specimen and ask them to describe the rock and what they are seeing
 

Response: Quite a few of my colleagues may bring a rock specimen in with them for an 'observe, describe and infer' style of question. The rock may well have some particular feature - in the way it appears, or the materials it is made from - that the interviewer will start with. The questions will start along the lines of … here's a rock; spend a few moments looking at this sample, and handling it. Can you tell me what you can see - I don't want to know what it is, I'd like you to describe what the rock look like, or appears to be made of. Can you see particles? or crystals? What does it look like to you? Use any sorts of descriptive words that you are familiar with. We make no assumptions at all about whether the candidates have looked at rock before, or not.
 

The focus at the start is to make careful observations, keeping these separate from any pre-conceived or instant interpretation that the candidate might want to jump to. These observations form the evidence for how the rock may have formed; and, ultimately, for what we might call the rock.
 

We'll then pick up on the observations, and lead the questions so that the discussion moves on to thinking out loud about what physical or chemical processes might have helped to create that particular feature of the rock: why are the grains round? Did they start off that shape, or have they been moved around? What sort of place on earth today can you think of where you might find grains that look like this? Why do you think that the rock is red? What elements or compounds are you familiar with that have a red colour? And so on. The way to approach these sorts of problems is to listen to the questions, and to take your time thinking out loud as you work through the task. This isn't a pop quiz, or an exercise in knowing stuff; it is an exercise in seeing how you can gather evidence objectively, and then to use that information to build up some simple ideas about how the sample might have formed.
 

PPE
 

Subject: Politics, Philosophy and Economics(政治、哲学与经济学)
 

Interviewer: Dr Matthew Williams, Academic and Career Development Fellow, Jesus College
 

Question: Is war the opposite of politics?
 

Response: It is common for interview questions in politics to tacitly (or in this case explicitly) ask — what is politics? This is a tough question, but an important one for the discipline. Good responses will break down the question, interpreting what is understood by ‘war’, ‘politics’ and ‘opposite’. The interviewer will look for the candidate to offer an argument in response to the question, and explain how they have interpreted the question.
 

In common usage, ‘politics’ can include ‘war’, not be opposed to it. So the ambition is to encourage students to think outside the box, and imagine an interpretation of politics that could even be considered to be positive and optimistic — politics as the avoidance of conflict. The best responses will notice that terms like ‘war’ can mean physical acts of violence, but could also include cyber warfare, or financial piracy. And, politics could be considered at the level of states and all the way down to the level of families. Hence the stark differentiation of war and politics may not be very useful to our understanding of these terms.
 

The further the interview goes, the more we will talk abstractly about the use of concepts. At root, the question asks about the validity of posing binary opposites to understand concepts like politics. Does this polarising use of language (x is the opposite of y) illuminate or obscure the reality? This might be a question to end the interview on.
 

心理学
 

Subject: Psychology(心理学)
 

Interviewer: Professor Nick Yeung, Professor of Cognitive Neuro-Science and Tutorial Fellow at University College
 

Question: What is the significance of the brain’s ‘face area’, and it being stimulated when people see and recognise faces?
 

Response: Facial recognition is a skill that is very useful and we mostly take for granted. By asking this, we are looking for the candidate to think critically about experimental design, and what we can learn from the results. For example, does the experiment have a clear hypothesis and predictions? Is it well designed to test these? Are the methods used appropriate? Does the experiment have necessary control conditions?
 

As well as thinking critically, we're also looking for the candidate to think creatively, for example about how the experiment could be improved and what the results of such an experiment might tell us about how people think and how the brain works: What does it mean to "recognise" a face? What cognitive processes are involved? What might be special (or not special) about faces? Why might there be a brain area devoted to face recognition?
 

Subject代表面试专业；Interviewer代表面试的导师；Question是面试问题；Response是导师给出的提问方式和答题思路。
 

ref : http://www.ox.ac.uk/news/2019-12-06-oxford-interviews-explained
 

综上，希望能对各位的本科申请带来帮助。还需了解更多出国留学资讯，欢迎随时和威久留学专家联系。祝各位申请顺利。