
Oxford University admissions interview questions and answers revealed - bootload
http://www.theguardian.com/education/2015/oct/12/oxford-university-admissions-interview-questions-and-answers-revealed
======
flashman
> Each person has to choose a number between 0 and 100 and the prize goes to
> the person whose number is closest to two thirds of the average of all of
> the numbers chosen. What number will you choose, and why?

A link for anybody who wants to know more about this question - but I do
encourage you to spend a minute or two thinking about it before you click:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guess_2/3_of_the_average](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guess_2/3_of_the_average)

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zvrba
Hm. People (at least I do) have a bias towards small numbers. Given the
choice, I'd probably choose something below 20. I don't know how
representative I am of the general population, but I'd guess the average to be
around 15 and choose 10.

\--- SPOILER BELOW

EDIT: I tested myself on
[http://twothirdsofaverage.creativitygames.net/](http://twothirdsofaverage.creativitygames.net/)
(linked from the wikipedia article) and entered 9. The actual average was 14.

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wfo
Interesting that the questions and the "right" answers select for a particular
political perspective, notably the question about banking. It's particularly
pertinent but also very politically charged and any answer will be
controversial. I like the idea of having open-ended thoughtful questions like
this in an admissions process instead of uninformative bland standardized
tests which say nothing but they come with their own pitfalls -- it's very
hard to avoid discriminating based on political affiliation, culture, etc.
Knowing the political attitude of the reader of your answer would give you a
huge edge in the admissions process and I think that's not ideal.

~~~
rahimnathwani
"the "right" answers select for a particular political perspective, notably
the question about banking."

No they don't. The article gave two nuanced answers from different
perspectives:

"A simple answer might be ... just the outcome of a competitive labour
market...."

“An alternative story is that the banking industry is not competitive ..."

My Oxford interview (>20 years ago, mind) had a mixture of technical-ish
questions (calculate the equilibrium point of these two demand/supply curves)
and more open-ended ones (is inflation good or bad, and why?).

~~~
wfo
They gave two simplistic answers from the same perspective, and I think you
have to share their perspective to think there's a difference between them.
And neither actually answered the question, which was "On the question of
bankers’ pay, and whether the government should do something to limit how much
they get" \-- it's clearly a question about where and when and why government
interference in economic matters is appropriate, and whether or not this
situation warrants it -- an ethical/philosophical question not simply an
economic one.

Though I may be misunderstanding since I don't know the Oxford process very
well -- from the way you're describing it, correct me if I'm wrong, applicants
to Oxford are already very specialized and the question would be asked in a
very specific economics-only context, in which case they've already filtered
out anyone with a different perspective and the question is entirely
appropriate.

~~~
rahimnathwani
Of course, those aren't the _only_ two good answers to the question but,
remember, they're trying to make a distinction between 17-year-olds. They're
not looking for a particularly perspective, but for some instinct to go deeper
than gut feel.

I'm sure they'd be impressed with someone who thought about it from a
philosophical perspective, talking about ethics etc., as long as there was
some structure/foundation to the answer. My interview was with two people (at
the same time), one specialising in philosophy and the other in economics.

Regarding the questions being specialised, I don't expect this is generally
the case. At the time of my interview, I was studying Economics, Maths and
Further Maths. So, the questions were challenging whilst still being within
reach, given only things I had already studied at school. (e.g. in Economics
I'd been introduced to supply and demand curves; in maths I'd been introduced
to calculus; answering the question was simply a matter of seeing the link and
putting the two together.)

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fiatmoney
The distillation is that they (and other similar institutions, actually)
select for "interesting" answers, rather than "correct" ones, and ideally
interesting answers that comport with their favored ideological framework.

~~~
joefarish
How does that work with science / maths / engineering interviews? When asked
to solve non-trivial calculus questions in an interview do you think they are
more likely to admit students who give "interesting" answers or the ones who
give correct answers?

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Gustomaximus
If this link-bait? Did I miss something? I cant find any questions/answers in
this article. Even the link to " sample selection released annually" only
shows one question.

If not perhaps this should be flagged and the header updated to say "Oxford
University expect to release admissions interview questions and answers"

