Oxbridge Biology Interview Questions

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

Below, we have collected a series of questions of the type you will be asked in your Oxford or Cambridge Biology interview. Use them to learn 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.

Biology Interview Questions

1. Why is water so important to life?

2. If you could save either the rainforests or the coral reefs, which would you choose?

3. Why do some habitats support higher biodiversity than others?

4. Why don't most herbivores have green fur?

5. What can you tell me about a cactus?

6. What percentage of the world's water is in a cow?

7. Why are there so few large predators?

8. Why do many animals have stripes?

9. Is it easier for organisms to live in the sea or on land?

10. Why do lions have manes?

11. Ladybirds are red. So are strawberries. Why?

12. Why is there salt in the sea?

13. How do amino acids behave in both acidic and basic conditions?

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

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

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

17. How do you tell if a protein codes for a transmembrane protein?

18. Why are there only twenty amino acids

19. What shape are bacteria and why?

20. What is the concentration of water?

21. What problems do fish face underwater?

22. Why does an egg rot?

23. Why can’t humans live forever?

24. If a brain was placed in front of you, how would you describe it?

25. If you were a virus, how would you communicate your opinions to me?

26. Why do leaves have their stomata on the lower surface?

27. Why don’t animals have wheels?

28. How can you tell how genetically identical the individuals of a species are?

29. What evidence is there to suggest that humans are still evolving?

30. Can you design an experiment to test the effect of bird faeces on lichen growth?

31. Why it is easier for oxygen to associate after one oxygen molecule has already done so?

32. How would you test to see if a rat could tell red from blue?

33. How has the human diet changed in the last three decades and why?

34. What would you define as a species?

35. Why is there a higher probability of being killed by an asteroid collision than by a heart attack?

36. What kind of changes would occur to the environment if a large asteroid impacted earth?

37. What are the arguments for preserving biodiversity?

38. What makes drugs physiologically active?

39. What would you do if I were a Magpie?

40. How many animals did Moses take on the arc?

41. If a carrot can grow from one carrot cell, why not a human?

42. Why are big, fierce animals so rare?

43. How does the immune system recognise invading pathogens as foreign cells?

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.