THE questions look like a bizarre cross between University Challenge and Trivial Pursuit. But the consequences of a bad answer are far from trivial.

As sixth-formers prepare to submit their applications to Oxford and Cambridge universities before Sunday’s deadline, a study of 1,200 students has revealed some of the quirkier lines of inquiry from tutors who interview candidates.

About 16,000 school-leavers will enter the portals of Britain’s most academically demanding institutions in mid-December to be cross-examined in the hope that they will be able to demonstrate they have the right sort of mind.

At Cambridge, about one in four will be successful. Tales of candidates setting bored dons’ newspapers alight at interview might be apocryphal, but the practice of facing lateral questions appears alive and well.

Last year’s applicants to study politics, philosophy and economics at Oxford claim to have been asked: “If there were three beautiful, naked women standing in front of you, which one would you pick? And does this have any relevance to economics?” Others applying for places on the same course said that they were asked to price a teapot or compare Tony Blair with a 19th-century politician.

“With the increase in the numbers of students excelling at A level, the Oxbridge interviews are one way of finding out who really cuts the mustard,” said Jessica Elsom, of Oxbridge Applications, which commissioned the survey.

Although Ms Elsom and her colleagues, who coach candidates to cope with the Oxbridge interviewing process, struggled to answer the Cambridge question, “What percentage of the world’s water is contained in a cow?”, prospective candidates may be relieved to learn that only 10 per cent of those surveyed felt that they had been asked bizarre questions.

More positively, the study also revealed that reading materials were perhaps of greater consequence. Three quarters (76 per cent) of all applicants who read The Economist regularly were offered a place.

Utilitarianism by John Stuart Mill was also a must for philosophy students, with 38 per cent who had read it being made an offer. Equally, Fermat’s Last Theorem seemed to stand mathematicians in good stead, with an offer of a place for 59 per cent of those who had read the paper.

Oxford was at pains to explain that the interviews were not designed to floor candidates but to urge them to demonstrate that they could think for themselves. “You should expect to be challenged and taken to an area which is new to you and argue from a new point of view,” the spokesman said.

“Tutors go to great lengths to make people feel relaxed. It’s a common misperception that they get hit by this kind of question as soon as they walk through the door.”

In the past, the style of questions has been criticised for favouring the more selfconfident and privately educated students, rather than allowing the bright but less sophisticated to shine. However, the spokesman said that, far from learning answers off pat, candidates would do well to be less polished and demonstrate that they can work out a logical answer to a question.

BRAIN TEASERS

Q What percentage of the world’s water is contained in a cow? (veterinary medicine, Cambridge)

Q Explain how a perm works (biochemistry, molecular and cellular, Oxford)

Q Here’s a piece of bark, please talk about it (biological sciences, Oxford)

Q Why do so few Americans believe in evolution? (human sciences, Oxford)

Q Are you cool? (philosophy, politics and economics, Oxford)

Q Why don’t we just have one ear in the middle of our face? (medicine, Cambridge)

Q Put a monetary value on this teapot (PPE, Oxford)

Q If there were three beautiful, naked women standing in front of you, which one would you pick? Does this have any relevance to economics? (PPE, Oxford)

Q Of all 19th-century politicians, which one was most like Tony Blair? (PPE, Oxford)

Q Why can’t you light a candle in a spaceship? (physics, Oxford)

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