Oxbridge Biochemistry Interview Questions

The best way to prepare for an Oxbridge Biochemistry interview is through mock interviews. As well as giving you general interview experience, they will focus your mind on the types of questions asked at an Oxford or Cambridge Biochemistry interview, teaching you to think in the style required for the real thing.

Below, we have collected a list of questions of the type you will be asked in your Oxbridge Biochemistry interview. Use them to gain an awareness of what's expected of you, plan out answers on your own, or give them to a teacher, friend, or family member, and ask them to conduct a mock interview with you.

Note: If you are doing mock interviews with us, we recommend waiting until afterwards to look through these questions, so that you aren't asked questions you have already prepared for (as you won't have that opportunity for the real thing!). If you haven't booked any mock interviews yet, you can do so here.

Biochemistry Interview Questions

1. How do amino acids behave in acidic conditions? What about basic conditions?

2. The selectivity filter is lined with carbonyl oxygens. Knowing this, why might the channel allow potassium ions through, but not sodium ions?

3. How does a perm work?

4. What is the significance of the human genome project?

5. Why is there salt in the sea?

6. How does DNA fingerprinting work? What is its use?

7. Why are there so many steps in the cascade of reactions?

8. Why does food taste better when it is hot?

9. What is an amino acid and why are there only twenty?

10. Why do we need ATP, why not just release energy from glucose directly?

11. How many moles of H20 are in a single cup of water?

12. What volume of wine can be drunk to reach the legal concentration of alcohol in the blood for driving?

13. How would you differentiate between salt and sugar without tasting them?

14. How does blood maintain its pH?

15. What is the concentration of water?

16. Why are explosions a risk in flour mills? What stops bags of flour exploding in the kitchen?

And that's all of them! Hopefully, you now have a sense of the types of questions you may be asked. To be even better prepared, try answering these and other questions with our tutors - you can book your mock interviews here.