My personal list of interview prep material

stuff that helped me prepare last year (and also things that I've discovered since) covering the areas that I hear that most people (including myself) tend to panic in. CLARIFICATION: This article does not claim to contain any q estions nor disc ssion on q estions that have !een planned for" have !een as#ed or are c rrently !ein$ as#ed %dependin$ on when this is !ein$ read&" in the '( )*+, or any other f t re interview session- It does however contain adaptations !y the a thor" of possi!le past interview q estions and may contain spec lation on and references to %from e.ternal so rces& q estions of which similar variants co ld !e" !y coincidence and n!e#nownst to the a thor " !e as#ed from applicants in f t re or on$oin$ interviewsA note: this was originally intended as a list of things you could try in your summer but since it's a bit too late for doing that (in this cycle at least) you could probably skim through the literature and pick out things to try as time permits. IM/ORTANT: Although I've listed a lot of books in this article, that doesn't mean that you need to have gone through them to have a chance, or to improve your chances, of getting in. or does it mean that they guarantee you getting in or an improvement of your chances. !his is "ust a compilation of #uesitons that I feel have helped me and would have helped me at my interview.

$. %stimation

&ou're almost certain to get asked a #uestion to make an estimate of some physical #uantity or another in at least one of your sub"ect interviews. 'rom my own e(perience and from others I've heard from, these range from )*ow many +ars bars do you need to eat to run a ,-km marathon. / does it matter how fast you run.) to )%stimate the amount of heat lost by ventilating your house in the winter) to )%stimate the volume of air trapped between grains in a bucket of dry sand). ot only do these #uestions re#uire you to be able to make reasonable estimates of things like the energy content of a +ars bar, the si0e of grain of sand and the volume of a house, they also do need you to be confident in #uickly plugging values like these into e#uations that need to be made up on the fly. 0 esstimation )-* 1 Lawrence 2einstein !his book is perhaps the best practise for this that I've come across in the past two years (a close second is its predecessor 1uestimation 2$.-3 by the same author). 4ork through it and you'll have no reason to get caught off guard when you're asked to guess how much the minimum *uman 5erceptible weight might be. A link to the book on Ama0on is here. At the time of writing it was less than 6$, from Ama0on and less than 6$- new from other sellers. 3ac#4of4the45nvelope /hysics 1 Clifford 6wart7 As the name suggests, this book is slightly more physics/focused but covers a very broad range of physical phenomena. Again, while I haven't personally read it through properly, it comes highly recommended in preparing you for kind of rough calculations you'd be asked to perform. !he problems range from all/time classics to physics of some unlikely scenarios. In general, they are somewhat less useful in a day/to/day basis than those in Guestimation but the preparation it gives for the task is still e(cellent. An ama0on link is here. !his is slightly more e(pensive than 1uestimation 7.- at 6$8.9from Ama0on and about 6$- new from other sellers, including, at the time of writing, :ook ;epository.

<ee Also : http:==what/if.(kcd.com / though still a new pro"ect by the author of )a webcomic of sarcasm, math and language) / >andall +unroe, the few articles that are there are definitely worth a read. %ven though the maths isn't #uite rigorous and some steps tend to be left out, this is definitely the kind of process that needs to be going inside your head (and very importantly, being communicated) at your interview. ote that the many cite notes (that look like the little superscript2$3 on the word superscript) often lead to scientific articles that have cover some very rigourous e(perimentation on the topic at hand. 4hile you probably shouldn't be going through all of them (atleast not this year) they can be very useful if you want to go in/depth about something that you find interesting. 4ho knows, you might even impress your interviewer with all you know. 4hile you're at it, why not try www.(kcd.com for some unashamed geeky humour.

7. <ketching 1raphs

!he second type of #uestion that you're probably going to get asked is to plot, describe or analyse a function that you've probably never seen before. &ou're usually then asked to make some physical or chemical inference from the behaviour of the function (or in the considerably harder case, make a deduction about the function from a physical fact or piece of logic). I remember that in my case it was A($/e?(c / b())?7 and another in the form A=(?7 @ e?:( or something similar. 4hile these are beyond the type of thing that you'd see at A/ level, even in a 'urther +aths course, they are nevertheless easy to sketch if you Aeep Balm and look for Britical Calues.

F nctions and 0raphs 4 I-M- 0elfand" 5-0- 0la$oleva" 5-5- 6hnol

is one the best around for an introduction to sketching graphs. !he book above takes you through plotting graphs right from the fundementals (with linear functions which I doubt you'll really have much use for reading about) to some familliar power functions, through to the more interesting rational functions that look like (D(?7 @ 7( / $-) =(9(?7 @ ( / E). !here are also some terrific e(cercises that really stretch and challenge. A #uick run through (especially of the last two chapters) should give you more than you need if you make sure to work through most of the e(cercises. Aeep in mind though, that this book doesn't cover trigonometric A link to this book on ama0on is here. :ut since you're only probably interested in he last chapter, you can find it on <cribd here. :eware: this is #uite an old book ($EFE) so if you're e(pecting modern layout and chatty te(t you might be disappointed. Also, the version on <cribd is a scanned upload so you might want to get a 5;' onto your computer for more convenient viewing. If you're looking for a standard you should have, these problems here (solutions here) should probably be treated as the minimum that you should e(pect. !ypical #uestions will be of functions that are one or more of these e(pressions added or composited together and will commonly involve a physical aspect linked to it.

A!G>AH <BI% B%<:

If you have only one sub"ect interview, the focus on physics or chemistry at your interview will depend on what your interviewers perceive your main interest to be. (If course if you haven't done a sub"ect at school then you won't be e(pected to know any advanced concepts about it but there is a good chance that you might be asked about material slightly above 1B<% level so a little bit of reading could help). +ost likely, your personal statement focuses on one of the two but it could also be a combination (like a focus on +aterials or somehow ' atural <ciences' in general if you're say applying to other at<ci courses such as those at ;urham. %ither way, the focus of the interviewers still depends on the interviewers themselves and is entirely at their discretion (after all it's only fair if you've claimed that you'll be studying both (or all) of those sub"ects at university).

D. 5hysics problems
!he kind of physics problems that catch you off guard tend to come in two varieties. !he ones that are genuinely difficult and the ones that are adaptations from genuinely advanced problems that aren't that difficult but look like they are difficult because of the unfamilliar sub"ect matter. !he key in either case is to stay calm and operate under the assumption that what ever problem that you're faced with was designed to be solvable by someone with your level of e(pertise. It might well not beJ the mock interview here, the interviewer actually admits that the solution to the problem actually took him a few sides of A, and a good D- minutes to write down and so was not really desgined to be solved by the interviewee at all (I recommend looking at all these interviews by the way).

A good way to get practice is to work through problems such as those in this book here:

3rainteaser /hysics 4 08ran 0rimvall

Although some problems later on in the book may re#uire the use of some slightly advanced calculus (and not usually interviewable), the vast ma"ority should be do/able (atleast partially) with perhaps occasionally a tiny bit more than an A/level knowledge of mathematics. Again, here's the book on Ama0on K going for 6$F.9- direct and 6$$.9D new from other sellers.

,. Bhemistry
&ou can find a mock interview here and the actual #uestions are likely to be slightly more advanced than that. Again, more often than not, interviewers won't be trying to catch you out but trying to verify if all those abilities that you claim to have (or should be having) in your personal statement. In my interview, for e(ample, all the chemistry problems that I was asked were soluble solely with mathematics (these included calculus with rate e#uations) but you should be prepared for anything from a standard A/level syllabus. Aeep in mind that A level syllabuses often repeat the same kind of #uestion over and over again so to get proper practice, it's a good idea to look at #uestions on the same topics from as many different e(am boards as you can. 2hy do Chemical Reactions 9appen: 4 ;ames <eeler 4hile I couldn't find a single book like Brainteaser Physics with the kind of #uestions that you could be asked, this is by far the most interesting book I've found aimed at readers with an A/level/but/not/yet/university/level background. <uffice to say it assumes knowledge of a few A level concepts but it tries very hard to e(plain concepts from scratch (atleast the ones from A/level. +ore advanced e#uations though, are "ust dumped on you which is kind of fair looking at the amount of stuff you'd have to work through first to follow a fundemental derivation of them K ie at Gni level) &ou can find it on Ama0on here. !his book is a bit more e(pensive and is probably not worth right now if you don't have any background in A level chemistry.

I!*%> <!G''
!hese can include probablility and written discussion of physical phenomena. !he level of probability #uestions can most often be tackled easily with a knowledge of Bombinatorics and 5ermutations (though officially you don't need to know either of these) and a careful breakdown of the problem. Bonsider: You play a game of coin-toss with a friend. The only rule of the game is that if you get a tails, then the other person wins and vice versa. The coin is fair and has an equal chance of yeilding head or tails for any toss. Are you more li ely to win if you start or let your friend start with the first toss! !he answer is that you're more likely to win if you let your friend start. *int: 4rite down an e(pression for the probability of you winning in each case and try to convert it into a form that you should be familliar with. ( ot neccesarily from a 'statistics' course). ;iscussion #uestions can be verbal (which is good because it's a conversation and you get support from the interviewer in real time if you need it), or in the case of a pre/ interview test, involves a small written account that you would then discuss with the interviewers. Luestions could include: "hy is the s y #lue! $iscuss with reference to the interaction of light with the atmosphere. $iscuss why the moon sometimes appears red during a full lunar ecclipse. =o are almost $ aranteed to $et a q estion a!o t somethin$ yo have never seen !efore!his will probably include a short e(planation (which for some can be frustratingly incomplete) and an e#uation about the behaviour of something that happens. &ou'll then be e(pected to be discuss the what happens to the system as various conditions are changed. Other miscellaneo s so rces of practice that aren>t entirely tailored to an A4level sylla! s ! t sef l nontheless-

%arvard Pro#lem of the "ee is an e(cellent set of over F- #uestions in physics, maths and logic. Gnfortunately, a large number of them re#uire knowledge some advanced calculus and mechanics to do that you're not e(pected to have for an interview. ;o/able #uestions with an A/level knowledge may include: 5roblem $, D2$3, F, $E, ,D and ME !his is list is not comprehensive and there probably are many more that you could do. 2$3 K I recently had a lecture on this very #uestion

!he incredibly rare The &hic en from 'ins ( And )) *ther +nfuriating Brainteasers , &uri Bhernyak, >obert >ose is an all/classic. I've only ever seen one problem from this book and the solution to it (while I understood the mathematics behind it) I still find difficult to convince myself of. !his book is e.pensive (possibly because it's old and there aren't too many copies around).

!he publicly available !rinity Bollege at<ci sample test: &ou will, as an applicant, probably get a link this some time before your interview if you're applying to !rinity.