In the interviews where academic assessment is orally done, giving spoken explanations is something most applicants are not accustomed to and needs practice with especially for international students; therefore:
"Practice speaking out loud key topics for 1-2 minutes/ improve ability to express thinking process logically out loud."
Structure
What
Example
“Would you like me to go deeper/further?"
Goals
No 'ah', 'uh'
No stopping
Tips
Don't rush/ speak slowly
Start with the basics
•
It is ok to say 'Would you like me to go further?' as interviewers wouldn't want you to spend 5 minutes on this basic question.
Topics
•
These topic questions are designed to help you start practicing spoken explanations and do not reflect questions that come up in the interviews; these are guidelines to get you started and you should come up with more topic questions yourself.
Example topics
<Chemistry>
Explain electrophilic addition.
What is a nucleophile?
What is the difference between ionic and covalent bonding?
Talk to me about the possible shapes a molecule can have based on VSEPR.
Sn1 vs Sn2
Le Chatelier's Principle
Hybridisation
Transition metals
Coloured complex ions
Explain trend in BP across period 3
Activation energy
Ionisation energy
Hess Law
Collision Theory
Hess law
Bond enthalpy
Electrolysis of brine
Isomer/ Chirality
Amino acids/zwiterrion
<Biology>
Explain transcription and translation
Explain cloning
What is genetic engineering?
+more
<Maths>
Talk to me through estimating the 4th root of 1.2
What do you know about Pythagoras/ Fermat's last theorem?
Recommended method
Make a list of all the topics like below and randomly pick out one (You may decide to pick from a cup.) Visually picture all the contents associated with the chosen topic, organize them and speak out.
N.B.// If you haven't covered some topics in A2 yet, don't study it yourself for the sake of the interview. If topics you haven't covered at school come up, it's perfectly fine to say you haven't covered it. They will either teach you very briefly or move onto a different topic.
Recommended Method
Film each meeting so that after several months, improvements in academic discussion can be noticed
Example
<Chemistry>