Are you unsure of how to prepare for a Cambridge Economics interview? What kinds of questions typically appear?
I studied Economics at Cambridge. I have also guided students through the admissions process for the last six years. The advice I give below is a summary of what I have learnt from helping students over these years. These are things I wish I had known when applying myself.
There are many other excellent universities offering economics courses, so Cambridge is not the be-all and end-all. However I personally found the Cambridge course highly engaging because of the supervision system. So I would definitely recommend others to give the application process a good go.
Suppose your goal is to try to improve your chances of doing well at your Cambridge Economics interview(s).
There is no secret formula to guarantee success. The Cambridge Economics admissions process is also very competitive.
Yet I do think there are things you can do to improve your chances of success.
Practice Questions
See the bottom of this article for 8 free practice interview style questions.
For a paid resource with 50 practice interview style questions, see the link here.
General Tips
Some general tips are as follows:
- Revise A-level or equivalent mathematics, particularly calculus, graph sketching and probability. However questions may not be limited to these topics.
- Read about economics and even current affairs. This can be articles, books, podcasts, magazines like the Economist etc.
- Think about how mathematics can be applied to economics.
- Speak about economics with friends, teachers, or family. The skill of thinking aloud is really valued at the interviews.
- Do lots of practice! There are lots of practice questions out there, notably the King’s College Cambridge questions (see the link further down). You can also practise in mock interview sessions. I provide other questions for practice (see below).
Types of Interview Question
Different colleges and different fellows will each ask different types of questions. From my experience it is clear that there are certain types of question that tend to be asked.
Note there may be other question types that come up. This list is not exhaustive.
Also some colleges will prefer to focus on certain question types. So it is unlikely that every question type from the list below will appear in your interviews. If your college gives you any guidance about what to expect, you are welcome to use that information to prioritise areas to revise a little more than others.
Below I give some advice to prepare for the types of question typically asked. This may seem like a lot of work for one or two interviews. However if you enjoy economics, then I think these tasks should be interesting in their own right. These pieces of advice will hopefully help you become a better economist, no matter the university attended.
Here are some of the typical question types and some pieces of advice to help prepare for each one. A few examples of these questions are at the end of this article.
Breakdown of Typical Question Types
| Question Type | Advice |
| Pure mathematics | Revise A-level mathematics. If applicable, also revise A-level further mathematics that you have covered in class (or equivalent). Practise maths questions, focussing on calculus, graph sketching and probability, but interviewers could ask about other topics. |
| Mathematics applied to economics | Consider how economics may use mathematics. Hint: the word “marginal” in economics essentially refers to a derivative. Have a glance at a few articles from this website linked below. Do not feel you have to know this stuff. It just provides a very brief glance at different ways economics employs mathematics: https://mnmeconomics.wordpress.com/ You can also see the “Downloads” section at the bottom of the King’s College Economics page. This has some possible pure maths, game theory and logic questions: https://www.kings.cam.ac.uk/study/undergraduate/subjects/economics |
| Economic theory scenarios | These questions could involve economic concepts from A-level or undergraduate economics. Revise your A-level economics course or equivalent. Have a brief look into a few new undergraduate concepts. For example indifference curves, production functions or natural experiments. |
| Current affairs or historical events | Review key events like the pandemic, Brexit and the 2008 financial crisis. Also look into a little economic history and history of economic thought. Practise discussing this with a discussion partner. |
| Reading an article | If you receive the article days/weeks in advance, make up your own questions and answers based on the article. Also discuss the article with teachers, family, friends etc. If you do not receive the article far in advance, practise discussing other articles from blogs, the Economist, or book chapters. |
| Personal statement | Review personal statements and come up with questions. |
| General motivation | Think about answers to questions such as your motivation for studying economics. Another example is to talk about an economics idea that you find surprising. |
| Logic | Practise, for example using the website: https://www.mathsisfun.com/puzzles/logic-puzzles-index.html |
Other Useful Resources
Some other helpful links are as follows:
- Student interview profiles may give you a sense of how interviews have gone previously. See here and here. Note many profiles are either vague or old but some of them are quite valuable.
- You can search “Cambridge Economics Interview” in YouTube for some students’ experiences and one or two practice interview questions.
- I mentioned it above but do make sure to look through the King’s College Economics webpage here.
- Also see the questions I have created below:
Some Practice Questions
I have attached some practice questions based on the different question types. These are questions I have created. So while they do not come directly from an interview, they are very similar to some of the types of questions that are typically asked. I hope they prove useful practice:
Good luck with your interviews!
Answers to the Questions
My sample answers to the questions can be found by clicking on the button below:
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