牛津公布2019本科面试例题及答案！

医学/生物医学科学专业

面试官: Chris Norbury, The Queen's College

问题: The viruses that infect us are totally dependent on human cells for their reproduction; is it therefore surprising that viruses cause human diseases?

Chris: Like most good interview questions, this could be a starting point for any number of interesting conversations. Most candidates will have a reasonable understanding that viruses are essentially parasitic genetic entities, but the interviewers are not really looking for factual knowledge.

In a tutorial-style discussion, strong candidates will engage with the paradox that viruses need us for their own reproduction, and yet cause us damage. They might point out that some of our responses to viral infection (such as sneezing) favour the spread of the virus. The interviewer might steer the discussion towards viral infections associated with high mortality, and the idea that any virus that killed off its host entirely would run the risk of extinction – unless it could infect other host species too. Candidates may have come across examples of viruses that jump from non-human animals to human hosts in this way.

We might then ask if the candidate considers it possible that there are viruses that infect humans and reproduce successfully, but do not cause any disease. How might we go about finding and characterising such viruses? These questions probe selection criteria including problem-solving, critical thinking, intellectual curiosity, communication skills, ability to listen and compatibility with the tutorial format.

音乐专业

面试官: Laura Tunbridge, St Catherine's College

问题: What are the different ways in which you listen to music? How does that change the way in which you think about what you're listening to?

Laura: Music interviews often have several parts: there may be questions about your interests or on broad topics, and many colleges will give a reading and/or a short piece of music to look at beforehand, which you will be asked questions about. Some colleagues play music in the interview and, similarly, ask what your thoughts are about it. The point of all this isn't to find out what you don't know but to get a sense of how you read a text or understand a piece of music, and how you think through issues or material. We are very much aware that the types of music people play and care about are varied and the course itself covers a wide range, from global hip hop to Mozart, medieval song to sound art. It's not a question, then, of liking the right stuff but of finding out how curious you are, and how well you can apply what you already know to something new.

Standalone questions like this one, are more unusual, but suggest the kinds of topics that might be used to prompt discussion. The question allows students to use their own musical experiences as a starting point for a broader and more abstract discussion about the different ways people consume music, the relationship between music and technology, and how music can define us socially. There might be follow-up questions about whether students think a particular way of listening has more worth the others, for example. It could also prompt other discussions; for example, we tend inWestern Europeto be silent in concert halls: why might that be and what is the effect? Does it encourage a certain kind of attentiveness and respect? Might it put some people off? What would be effect of, say, clapping between movements of a symphony to your understanding of how the music works?

I might also expect to discuss whether particular types of music suit being listened to in particular ways; whether listening on headphones changes the way you experience what's going around you; and what makes some soundtracks better than others. We are interested in probing their understanding of music and its contexts, so thinking about how you share music with others and how the environment in which you listen to music affects the way you experience it – if you hear the same tracks live, at a festival or concert, what factors change how you hear and think about the music? The study of music is about more than just examining composed works, and a question like this gets at that aspect of the course.

化学专业

面试官: Martin Galpin, University College

问题: How many different molecules can be made from six carbon atoms and twelve hydrogen atoms?

Martin: This question gives candidates an opportunity to demonstrate a wide understanding of chemistry and there is no simple, immediate answer.

Most candidates would start by drawing some molecules to construct some that satisfy the requirement of six carbons and twelve hydrogens. If the candidate gets stuck, the interviewer may ask them to explain how many bonds they'd expect each carbon and each hydrogen to form. This part of the interview tests candidates' familiarity with different kinds of molecules, their ability to visualise molecules in three dimensions and then draw them, and their ability to decide if two differently-drawn molecules are actually equivalent. During this process, the interviewer would also be looking at how well the candidate responds to prompting.

After a few minutes, the interviewer may use the question to move the discussion toward concepts such as chirality, cis-trans isomerism, ring strain, and isotope effects. Candidates may not have heard of these before, which is fine and to be expected; the interviewer wants to see how quickly the candidate picks up new concepts and whether they can offer plausible explanations for them. The interviewer might finish the discussion with a rather more difficult question, such as 'is a molecule only stable if all the carbons form four bonds?', thus challenging what is taught at school and getting the candidate to think critically about the nature of a chemical bond.

地球科学专业

面试官: Conall MacNiocaill, Exeter College

问题1: How can we estimate the mass of the atmosphere?

Conall: This question can be addressed in variety of ways and addresses several of our selection criteria: an aptitude for analysing and solving a problem using a logical and critical approach; lateral thinking and hypothesis generation; the ability to manipulate quantities and units; and the ability to apply familiar concepts (pressure, force etc.) to unfamiliar situations.

Candidates often like to start off by thinking about the composition of the atmosphere, and how we might know that, what its density is, and then to ways of estimating its volume. We look to see if there are ways of simplifying the problem: for example, could you treat the Earth and atmosphere as a sphere slightly larger than the Earth and subtract the volume of the Earth from the larger sphere to get a volume for the atmosphere? The difficulty with this approach often lies with determining where the atmosphere ends and how the density might vary with altitude, how applicable concepts like the ideal gas law are in these circumstances, and these are uncertainties that we might explore in a discussion.

An alternate approach is to see if there are properties of the atmosphere that we can observe at the surface that might enable us to estimate the mass. One such property is atmospheric pressure, which is a force per unit area. The force can also be described as a mass multiplied by an acceleration, which on Earth is the acceleration due to gravity. Hence, if we have some idea about atmospheric pressure we can calculate the mass pressing down on a unit area. If we can estimate the total surface area of the earth (approximated by the surface area of a sphere) we can therefore calculate the total mass of the atmosphere.