Oxbridge Medicine interview questions

Medicine interviews at Oxford and Cambridge

Medicine interview questions to practise

Say your first thoughts out loud or type them, then compare with how a strong answer goes. These questions are our own, written in the style tutors use.

1. Question 1

   Why does your heart rate go up when you stand up quickly?

   What it shows a tutor: Explaining a body's response as a chain of cause and effect, from physics to physiology.

   Your first thoughts, as you would say them
   Show a strong answer
   How a strong answer goes

   1. When you stand, gravity pulls blood down into the veins of your legs, which stretch easily.
   2. So less blood returns to the heart, the heart fills less, and each beat pumps out less. Blood pressure starts to fall.
   3. Stretch sensors in the walls of the carotid arteries and the aorta notice the drop and signal the brainstem.
   4. The brainstem shifts the balance from parasympathetic to sympathetic: heart rate rises and blood vessels tighten, which brings pressure back up within seconds.
   5. If that reflex is slow, for example after dehydration or with some medicines, people feel light-headed on standing. That is a useful check that the explanation is right.

   A tutor might then ask: Why might an astronaut feel faint on returning to Earth after months in space?

   The usual wrong turn: Saying the heart needs to work harder to pump blood up. Start from the drop in pressure the body detects.

2. Question 2

   A test for a disease is right 99% of the time. One person in 1,000 has the disease. Someone tests positive. How likely is it that they have it?

   What it shows a tutor: Reasoning with numbers under pressure, and seeing why it matters to patients.

   Your first thoughts, as you would say them
   Show a strong answer
   How a strong answer goes

   1. First I would say what I am assuming: that the test catches 99% of people who have the disease and correctly clears 99% of people who do not.
   2. Imagine 1,000 people. About 1 has the disease and will almost certainly test positive.
   3. Of the 999 without the disease, 1% test positive by mistake: about 10 people.
   4. So about 11 people test positive and only 1 of them has the disease. The chance is roughly 1 in 11, about 9%, not 99%.
   5. The reason is that the disease is rare, so false positives from the large healthy group outnumber the true ones.
   6. In practice this is why screening programmes follow a positive result with a second, different test, and why a doctor must explain a positive result carefully.

   A tutor might then ask: How would the answer change if the person was tested because they already had symptoms?

   The usual wrong turn: Answering 99%. Turn percentages into numbers of people before anything else.

3. Question 3

   Should people who smoke wait longer for heart surgery than people who do not?

   What it shows a tutor: Separating clinical reasons from moral judgements, and holding a balanced view under questioning.

   Your first thoughts, as you would say them
   Show a strong answer
   How a strong answer goes

   1. First separate two questions: does smoking change how well surgery works, and do smokers deserve less care?
   2. On the first, smoking raises the risks of surgery and slows healing. Asking a patient to stop before an operation can be a clinical decision made for their own benefit.
   3. On the second, ranking patients by blame runs into trouble quickly: addiction is hard to escape, smoking is linked to poverty, and the same logic would cover drinking, diet or sport injuries.
   4. The NHS principle is care based on clinical need. Using blame would also damage trust: patients might hide habits from doctors.
   5. My view: no, if the reason is blame. But it is reasonable to make surgery safer by supporting the patient to stop first, and to explain that clearly.

   A tutor might then ask: Would your answer change if the resource was a liver transplant and the patient had a history of heavy drinking?

   The usual wrong turn: Picking a side in the first sentence and defending it whatever the follow-up. Show both questions, then decide.

4. Question 4

   Why is there still no vaccine for the common cold?

   What it shows a tutor: Applying what you know about immunity and viruses to a practical problem.

   Your first thoughts, as you would say them
   Show a strong answer
   How a strong answer goes

   1. A vaccine trains the immune system to recognise a specific part of a virus, usually a protein on its surface.
   2. Colds are caused by many different viruses, mainly rhinoviruses, and there are well over a hundred types of rhinovirus alone. Immunity to one gives little protection against the others.
   3. So a vaccine would need to cover a great many types at once, or find a part of the virus that all types share and that the immune system can reach.
   4. There is also cost and benefit: colds are usually mild, so a vaccine would need to be very safe and cheap to be worth giving to everyone.
   5. So the obstacle is variety plus a weak case for mass vaccination, not that colds are unusually hard to fight.

   A tutor might then ask: Why do we need a new flu vaccine most years but only one course of the measles vaccine?

   The usual wrong turn: Saying the cold virus mutates too fast and stopping. The bigger issue is how many different viruses cause colds.

Oxford interview dates, December 2026

All Oxford interviews are online. Your invitation gives your own times.

What tutors are listening for

• Thinking aloud

  Both universities say they want to hear how you work things out, not a memorised answer.

• Using a hint

  Tutors expect to help. What matters is what you do with a prompt or an objection.

• Checking

  Test your answer on a simple case, an example or a counterexample, and fix slips out loud.

More for your application

• Oxford Medicine acceptance rate
• Oxford Medicine (graduate-entry / accelerated) acceptance rate
• Oxford Biomedical Sciences acceptance rate
• Cambridge Medicine acceptance rate
• Cambridge Medicine Graduate Course acceptance rate
• Oxford interview dates for every course
• Cambridge interviews, college by college
• Oxford and Cambridge offer dates
• Oxbridge question of the day

Questions people ask