Oxford and Cambridge interviews have long been the stuff of legend, or more probably, urban myth. Most people have heard the story of the candidate who is supposed to have set fire to his interviewer’s newspaper when asked to surprise him, or the student who, when asked to describe bravery, said “this” before walking out of the interview.

Other questions asked of Oxbridge applicants included:

English: “How does the author use hay fever as a metaphor in Howard’s End?

Philosophy and psychology: How do you test social stereotyping?

Philosophy and Spanish: “If everything is predetermined, should we punish criminals?”

English: What is the point of me teaching you?”

History: “To what extent is it possible to trace the history of the use of sound?

Social and political science “What do you think is the effect of the Japanese mafia on Brazil and America?”

—Sarah Womack —How Santa’s reindeer can lead to Oxbridge (Telegraph)