每年的11月中旬开始，学生们会陆续接到牛剑的面试邀请信，开始紧锣密鼓的面试准备。
往年来看，面试是很多优秀学生的大敌，很多学生有着相当不错的GCSE成绩、AL/IB成绩，入学考试的成绩也是面试官见过的最高分之一，个人陈述同样非常好；有的学生得到了4个学院的面试邀请，这真的相当多了，但最终没有拿到一个offer。
牛剑面试问题是什么，怎么样的作答思路才正确？今天，让我们来聊聊牛剑面试，一起来揭开2021年度牛剑面试的神秘面纱。
面试时间
每年，牛剑在11月份初举行本校的入学考试，比如MAT/STEP等。
在笔试成绩出来之后，学校会在11月中旬发放面试邀请。
以今年牛津大学为例，每个专业和科系的面试时间不同，但今年的面试基本都集中在12月6日-17日之间。以下是部分面试时间表。
牛津大学面试时间表（部分）
面试形式
今年，所有剑桥、牛津的面试都是线上进行。
学校通常会提供Zoom教室链接，在指定时间学生点击链接登入即可。
牛津线上面试
剑桥线上面试
面试问题
牛剑的面试问题非常专业，比较少见一些常规的面试题。大体来说，面试问题将基于学生所报的专业，并结合教授的研究方向，具体到专业性很强的面试问题。
理科专业，比如数学、物理专业，通常数学教授会直接出题，现场让面试学生做数学题、物理题。
而非计算类的专业问题，有着自己的答题思路。
我们一起来看一些面试问题，下面这些问题的作答思路由牛剑面试辅导官点评。
Q. Would it matter if tigers became extinct?
如果老虎灭绝了对人类会有影响吗? 
A. 这个问题并不是希望面试学生展示他们关于老虎的专业知识。大多数面试学生会本能地回答“是的……”，但真正让我感兴趣的答案是“因为……”，这有助于将具有批判性思维的学生与其他学生区分开来。我可能会接着问下面这个问题，如果不那么迷人的生物——比如真菌——灭绝了，这是否重要?
多种老虎濒临灭绝边缘
Q. If you could save either the rainforests or the coral reefs, which would you choose?如果你可以拯救雨林或珊瑚礁，你会选择哪一个?
A. 我希望面试学生能够运用他们的常识来给出答案——不需要详细的知识。学生可能会被问到自然特征的重要性，比如生物多样性和稀有物种，以及人类利益，比如从雨林或珊瑚礁获得的燃料和食物、生态旅游和药物。最后还要考虑气候变化、土壤侵蚀、污染、伐木、生物燃料替代、过度捕捞等方面的影响。最终的答案并不重要——为了在自然保护和人类需求两方面保持平衡，珊瑚礁和雨林都必须得到可持续的管理。
Q. Why might it be useful for an English student to read the Twilight series?为什么对英语专业的学生来说读《暮光之城》系列非常有用?
A. 我问这个问题有几个原因。在面试时找到一些面试学生最近读过的文章是很有用的，而且《暮光之城》系列的书很容易找到，也很受欢迎。一般情况下，面试学生会把注意力集中在他们在学校里学过的文章上，我想让他们谈论他们独立阅读过的文章，这样我就能了解他们是如何独立思考的，而不是他们跟老师学到了什么。优秀的英语学生会对他们读过的每一本书的文学性进行分析。这个问题还会引出一些关于叙事声音、类型和观众的有趣讨论。
《暮光之城》
Q. If the punishment for parking on double yellow lines were death, and therefore nobody did it, would that be a just and effective law? 在双黄线上停车的人如果会处以死刑，没有人会这样做，这个法律公正且有效吗?
A. 面试学生不需要对这个问题给出正确或错误的答案。他们只需表明，他们能认清由此引起的各种问题。能区分“公正”和“有效”的面试学生表现得最好。一旦做出区分，问题就变得不同了。公正的法律不一定有效，反之亦然。犯罪行为受到法律制裁的占比，这涉及到法律的公正性问题。其有效性的答案已经在问题中——“因此没有人敢在双黄线上停车”。
Q. What does it mean for someone to “take” another’s car? 一个人“拿走”另一个人的车是什么意思?
A. 这个问题没有正确的答案。例如，你能在不开车甚至不移动的情况下“拿走”一辆车吗?重点在于面试学生的推理——如何制定一个初始定义，然后如何应用并改进这个初始定义，以回应面试老师提供的假设例子。一个例子可能是: 我正在街上走，这时开始下雨了。我打开一辆没有上锁的车门，在车里坐了15分钟，直到雨停。我“拿走”这辆车了吗?面试的目的是给面试学生一个机会来展示他们的申请，推理能力和沟通技巧。
Q. What is language?语言是什么?
A. 例如，学生有时说他们喜欢学习西班牙语，因为他们“热爱这门语言”。为了让学生进行批判性和分析性思考，这个问题会让他们思考他们喜欢的语言是由什么构成的？——它是由特点定义的还是由功能(它是做什么的)定义的?形式与意义是如何联系起来的?等等。
Q. Why does your heart rate increase when you exercise?为什么当你运动时你的心率会增加? 
A. 所有学生都能给出简单的答案，因为你需要向肌肉输送更多的氧气和营养物质，并排除代谢产物。但后续的问题将考察学生是否认识到，身体必须有一种方式知道它需要提高心率，以及实现这一目标的可能方法。答案可能包括感觉到氧气含量降低或二氧化碳含量升高。事实上，气体的浓度可能不会有太大的变化，所以进一步要求学生们给出其他答案，以及可以测试得出这些答案的方法。这些问题涉及以下几个标准，如解决问题能力和批判性思维能力、求知欲、热情、好奇心以及倾听能力。
Q. Should poetry be difficult to understand? 诗歌应该很难理解吗?
A. 这个问题是因为一位面试学生谈论起他读过的几首诗而引起的，我们讨论了这些诗是如何传达思想的(通过语气和他们使用的意象)。我们想引导面试学生进入概念性思考，以测试他的求知欲，以及他利用已知知识(他所知道的诗歌)学习不太熟悉知识方法。重要的是，学生要意识到，对于这样的问题，正确答案不是唯一的;接下来的问题为:我们可能会遇到什么样的“困难”? 这些特征是诗歌特有的，还是其它文章中同样存在?等等。最让我们感兴趣的是: 面试学生表明他们有潜力，进一步发展自己，从而在我们提供的课程中学到更多知识。文学是牛津大学现代语言学位的重要组成部分，但我们知道大多数面试学生在申请学习语言之前都没有正式学习过文学。我们想知道的不是因为他们阅读过大量的文章从而表明对文学充满兴趣，而是他们具有研究文学的能力: 他们能够认真阅读各种语言的(诗歌、散文、戏剧)，充满热情并具有丰富的想象力。
Q. Is it easier for organisms to live in the sea or on land? 对生物来说，生活在海里还是陆地上更“容易”?
A. 首先，应该定义“容易”——它是否意味着更简单，更少的能量消耗，进化程度更低，更不容易被吃掉等等?然后，面试学生可以考虑海洋中存在的各种问题，如高盐度、高压力、缺乏光照等。在陆地上生活的问题包括身体的特殊结构，防止脱水，需要更复杂的运动系统(腿、翅膀等)，因此需要更好的感觉和神经系统等。然后问，动物和植物在哪一个生态系统更“成功”?所以现在必须将定义改为“成功”……
Q. The viruses that infect us are totally dependent on human cells for their reproduction; is it therefore surprising that viruses cause human diseases? 感染我们的病毒完全依赖人类细胞来繁殖; 因此，病毒引起人类疾病是否会让人感到惊讶?
A. 就像大多数好的面试问题一样，这个问题可以引起任何有趣的对话。大多数面试学生都会给出合理解释，即病毒本质上是寄生的基因实体，但面试官并不想得到这些基础知识。在教程式的讨论中，优秀的面试学生将参与到一个悖论中，即病毒需要人体进行繁殖，却给我们造成伤害。他们可能会指出，人类感染病毒后的一些反应(比如打喷嚏)有利于病毒的传播。面试老师可能会将讨论转向与高死亡率相关的病毒感染，以及任何杀死宿主的病毒都有灭绝的风险——除非它也能感染其他宿主物种。面试学生可能会遇到这样的例子:病毒从动物转移到人体。然后面试老师可能会问，面试学生是否认为存在感染人类并成功繁殖但不引起任何疾病的病毒。我们如何去发现和鉴定这种病毒?这些问题考察学生以下能力，包括解决问题能力、批判性思维能力、求知欲、沟通能力、倾听能力以及与教程式回答的的兼容性。
Q. Why is income per head between 50 and 100 times larger in the United States than in countries such as Burundi and Malawi? 为什么美国的人均收入是布隆迪和马拉维等国的50到100倍?
A. 这个问题可能集中在最重要的经济问题上:为什么有些国家富有而有些国家贫穷?和大多数经济学问题一样，没有简单的或唯一的答案。面试学生需要考虑所有造成这种收入差距的原因。
Q. How can we estimate the mass of the atmosphere? 我们如何估计大气的质量?
A. 这个问题可以用多种方法来解决，并涉及我们的几个考察标准:使用逻辑和批判性方法分析和解决问题的能力; 横向思维能力和如何做假设;处理数量和单位的能力; 以及将熟悉的概念(压力、力量等)应用于不熟悉的情况的能力。学生通常首先考虑大气的组成，以及我们如何知道这一点，它的密度是多少，然后再考虑估算它体积的方法。我们来看看是否有更简单的方法: 例如，你可以把地球和大气层看作一个比地球稍大的球体，然后从这个球体中减去地球的体积，就得到大气层的体积?这种方法的困难往往在于确定大气层的终点以及密度随高度如何变化，理想气体定律等概念在这些情况下是否适用，而这些都是我们在讨论中可能探讨的不确定性。另一种方法是，我们是否可以在表面观察到的大气特性，使我们能够估计其质量。其中一个性质是大气压，也就是单位面积上的力。这个力也可以描述为质量乘以加速度，在地球上是重力加速度。因此，如果我们对大气压有一些了解，我们就可以计算单位面积上的压强。如果我们能估计出地球的总表面积(近似于球体的表面积)，我们就能因此计算出大气的总质量。
Q. How many different molecules can be made from six carbon atoms and 12 hydrogen atoms? 6个碳原子和12个氢原子可以组成多少种不同的分子?
A. 这个问题给了考生一个展示化学知识的机会，答案并不简单。大多数学生会先画出由6个碳原子和12个氢原子构建的满足要求的分子。如果学生不知道该如何解决这个问题，面试老师可能会让他们想想每个碳和氢会形成多少个键。这个问题测试学生对不同种类分子的熟悉程度、将分子形象化并画出来的能力、以及他们判断用两种不同方式画出来的分子是否相等的能力。在这个过程中，面试老师还会观察应聘者面对提示的反应。几分钟后，面试老师将会讨论手性、顺式反式异构现象、环应变和同位素效应等概念。学生可能之前没有听说过这些，这正是意料之中的事情; 面试老师想考察应聘者掌握新概念的速度，是否能给出合理解释。面试老师可能会以一个更难的问题来结束讨论，例如“一个分子只有在所有碳都形成四个键时才稳定吗?”， 这个问题课本上并没有，极具挑战性，并让学生批判性思考化学键的本质。
相信以上的几个问题以及作答思路，会让学生初具面试问题的基本印象。最后，与大家分享分科目牛剑面试题目：
面试题库
Computer science 
 Who invented the computer? 
 Tell me about binary searches. What about their efficiency? 
 The game of chess will be played perfectly by computers. Is this statement true? 
 How would you ensure security between two people, A and B? 
 How small can you make a computer? 
 What happens when light has to pass through a medium denser than air? 
 What is the one fundamental difference between a spreadsheet and a database? 
 Explain the principle of the global positioning system (GPS). What factors contribute to its  accuracy? 
 Can computers think?
English 
 Are there too many books? 
 Define irony. 
 Do you think there is any point to reading criticism?
 Does every work of literature always have a moral? Is there such thing as an immoral book? 
 Do you think books transfer well to films? Give examples of this. 
 How important is biography in the study of literature? 
 If it could take a form, what shape would the novel To the Lighthouse become? 
 If you could make up a word, what would it be? Why? 
 If you could design the A-level English course, which texts would you include? 
 Is good spelling merely a matter of etiquette? 
 Is the Bible a fictional work? Could it be called chick lit? 
 Is poetry meant to be difficult to understand? 
 What makes a short story different from a novel? 
 What is literature? 
 What is a haiku? Why are they so different in structure to a sonnet?
 What is the difference between poetry and prose? 
 What is the point of studying English? 
 Why might it be useful for an English student to read the Twilight series? 
 Why bother to write a poem?4 
 Why do we bother studying literature that is hundreds of years old? 
 Would you rather be a novel or a poem? 
 Was Shakespeare a rebel?
 Did Shakespeare write Shakespeare’s plays? 
 Don’t you think Hamlet is a bit long? 
 Hamlet speaks to the ghost; what significance does this have? 
 Do you think Hamlet knows he is being listened to when he says “To be, or not to be?” 
 What does the ghost in Hamlet have to do with madness? 
 How can a work of literature be beautiful? 
 Should politicians study Eng
Geography 
 Would anything remain in the study of geography if we took the notion of place away? 
 Give and explain some environmental impacts of industrial agriculture. 
 Are fair-trade bananas really fair? 
 How can computers aid geographers in understanding physical processes? 
 How can volcanic eruptions change global climate, and at what timescales? 
 How did the Ancient Greeks know that the Earth wasn’t flat?
 What are natural hazards? 
 What are the limitations of hard mapping? 
 What is the difference between a volcano and a mountain? 
 What is the impact of globalisation and multi-national corporations? 
 What is the role of maps in modern society?
 What is the population of Croydon? 
 Why is climate so unpredictable? 
 Why should we conserve?
History of art 
 What is your opinion of the Turner Prize? 
 What work of art would you most like to own?  
 Are the Old Masters overrated?
History 
 Assess the role of dance in history. 
 Are verbal sources more useful than written sources?
 Are history and myth compatible? 
 Define revolution. 
 Does the past exist? 
 How do you organise a successful revolution? 
 How would you compare Henry VIII and Stalin? 
 Is there such a thing as “race”? 
 Is violence always political? 
 Should historians be allowed to read science fiction novels? 
 Can history stop the next war? 
 Can we still learn lessons from 18th century warfare? 
 Can losers ever write history? How? 
 Compare and contrast the French and Russian revolutions.  Compare and contrast WWI and WWII. 
 Compare the French Revolution with a modern event.
 Do we ever learn from the past?
Law 
 Can you define intellectual property? 
 Define “at fault”. 
 Does a girl scout have a political agenda? 
 If a friend locks me in a room, and says I am free to come out whenever I like as long as I pay  £5, is this deprivation of liberty? 
 If a wife had expressed distaste for it previously, would her husband’s habit of putting  marmalade in his egg at breakfast be grounds for divorce? 
 If the punishment for parking on double yellow lines were death, and therefore nobody did it,  would that be a just and effective law? 
 If you could go back in time to any period of time, when would it be and why? 
 Is someone guilty of an offence if they did not set out to commit a crime but ended up doing  so? 
 Is wearing school uniform a breach of human rights?
Maths 
 If you could have half an hour with any mathematician past or present, who would it be?
 Derive the formula for the volume of a sphere. 
 Do you know what a hyperbolic function is?
 How would you prove that the square root of 3 is irrational? 
 How many 0s does the number 30 have? 
 How long does a mirror have to be for you to see your whole body? 
 If each face of a cube is coloured with one of six different colours, how many ways can it be  done? 
 I drove to an interview at 50 mph and will drive back at 30 mph because of the traffic. What is  my average speed?
Medicine 
 At what point is a person dead? 
 How would you describe a human to a person from Mars?  How would you measure the weight of your own head? 
 How would you poison someone without the police finding out?
 How would you simulate altitude in your living room? 
 If you were a grapefruit, would you rather be seedless or non-seedless? 
 Should someone sell their kidney? 
 Tell me about drowning. 
 What do you like most about the brain?
Modern languages 
 Are you surprised that there is no Russian word for “privacy”? 
 Chekhov’s great, isn’t he? 
 Can you only understand or analyse a text properly in its original language? 
 Can a language ever truly die? 
 Compare and contrast Spanish and Portuguese. 
 Does language define our identity? 
 Do you think the number of languages in the world will change in the next century? 
 How does the literature you have read affect your opinion of that society? 
 How does Le Monde differ from an English broadsheet?  How can you tell if a noun is masculine, feminine or neutral in German? 
 How has travel influenced your relationship with language? 
 How is the German mindset different to the Russian mindset? 
 How many cultures are grouped together under the label “China”?
Philosophy, politics and economics (PPE) 
 Consider a production line. What could be done to help the worker get away from the  routine? 
 How would you market a rock band? 
 Should governments subsidise agriculture? 
 Would I be justified in saying that only morons play sport?  Do bankers deserve their high pay or should government limit it? 
 What is the difference between the buying and selling of slaves and the buying and selling of  football players? 
 What is the point of using NHS money to keep old people alive? 
 How many petrol stations are there in America? 
 Are there always winners and losers in politics? 
 Do animals think? 
 Can science and religion ever be comfortable bedfellows?  If you are not in California, how do you know it exists? 
 Is being hungry the same thing as wanting to eat? 
 Put a monetary value on this teapot. 
 Reflect on individual responsibility and the morality of air travel. 
 Should there be an intelligence test to decide who could vote? 
 What has been Britain’s greatest political achievement of recent years? 
 What is Communism?
Sciences 
 Are humans still evolving? 
 Are parasites bad? 
 On a hot day what should you do with a fridge? 
 Can you change an endothermic reaction into an exothermic one? 
 Calculate the speed a coin will hit the floor when dropped from 2 metres above the ground. 
 Compare and contrast electronegativity and ionisation energy. 
 Compare and contrast hydrochloric acid and phosphoric acid. 
 Draw the shape of the molecule B2H6. 
 Describe a heat engine. 
 Does the snow falling on top of a train have an effect on its velocity? 
 Explain the bonding in benzene.
 How does DNA fingerprinting work? What is its use? 
 How can you store large amounts of hydrogen? 
 How many atoms are there in a Brussels sprout? 
 How many molecules are there in this room? 
 How many molecules are there in a glass of water? 
 How many pebbles would it take to fill a car? 
 How much of human behaviour is genetically determined?
以上就是今天跟大家分享的干货内容。
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