99%的留学生都挂掉的牛津面试题，究竟有多烧脑？荔枝君与你一起见证。

牛津大学的面试题是出了名的难，但是就在2019年12月6日，牛津大学公布了年度重量级的面试样题，希望给即将参加2020本科入学面试的同学们提供一些参考，可谓是雪中送炭、相当及时了！

未来几周，牛津大学将迎来成千上万的本科面试学生，他们将参加牛津的入学面试。

大多数学生有至少两场面试，取决于所选专业，而且面试期间可以免费住在牛津的各学院。

每年的面试问题都是以专业为主，给学生一个机会展示对所选专业的兴趣和热情。

申请Modern Languages的同学可能会被问到——在这个英语主导的世界，为什么学习法语或意大利语仍旧很重要（why it is important to still learn French or Italian, in a world where the dominant language is English？）

PPE专业会问——战争是政治的对立面吗（ “Is war the opposite of politics?”）

可能会让工程学生们——解释并画出，足球从静止到被踢到空中的这个过程中，引起速度变化的力（explain and sketch the physical forces behind velocity, that determine the process of kicking a football, from being at rest to up in the air）。

面试中不管问了什么问题，“正确答案”不一定是导师的最终目标。

认知神经科学教授与牛津大学学院导师Nick Yeung教授解释：“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。”

牛津大学本科招生主任Samina Khan表示：“面试绝不是背诵已知的知识，而是给考生一个平台，让他们展示自己的能力和潜力。这便意味着申请人需要积极运用他们的知识来解决新的问题，在这一过程中接受挑战并让自己出彩。在回答问题时并没有绝对的对错，但必须要有新意。”

为了让大家更好地理解，这里就给大家直接放原文了，补充解释一下：

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。

最新牛津大学面试样题

地球科学

● Subject

Earth Sciences

● 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 rockis 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

● 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 inpolitics 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 obscurethe reality? This might be a question to end the interview on.

心理学

● Subject

Psychology

● 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 veryuseful 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?

申请牛津大学，面试真的相当重要了，多少人淘汰在这个环节，与名校遗憾擦肩。毕竟与剑桥相比，牛津的A-level要求宽松很多，但名校也是有固定招生名额的，牛津的面试这关就会卡得相当严格。而离面试越来越近了，希望小伙伴们都能保持一个轻松的心情哦！