When I applied to Cambridge university, my first interview was with a professor who invited me to sit, pressed his fingertips together, looked at me searchingly, then said: “Is the nation-state in decline?”
My heart fell. Not only did I not know the answer, I didn’t even really understand the question. But I had heard — possibly from my state school, or else from the university — that these interviews were “not testing what you know, but how you think”. So I took a breath and said: “I’m not sure what a nation-state is.”
It worked out well. The professor said that was fine, asked me a few simple questions to help me figure out the term, then a few more as we worked our way through the original question. In the end, I was offered a place.
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