HSPS Cambridge Interview Questions

Getting ready for your Cambridge interview? Our list of HSPS interview questions contains real questions from past interviews, as well as a sample interview question with a worked solution prepared by one of our expert Oxbridge interview tutors.

We recommend that you use these to practise ways of approaching questions rather than trying to rehearse and memorise answers. The odds of any of these exact questions coming up in your interview are slim – partly because your personal statement and other individual factors will affect what you’re asked and partly because HSPS is by nature a very broad and complex subject: there’s so much that you could discuss at interview.

Even if you were to be asked something very similar to one of these questions, tutors are good at spotting rehearsed answers and tend to be unimpressed by them.

Sample Interview Question with Worked Solution

Is choice a bad thing for us?

The most instinctive answer to this question would be ‘no’. The history of the 20th century is a battle between systems of political and social governance which offer choice (e.g. Capitalism) and those which do not (e.g. Communism or Fascism). And it seems that the former method of living has triumphed. We are regularly reminded in adverts that we have a right to choose (think of Burger King’s ‘Have it your way’ campaign) and monopolies are resisted on the account of lack of consumer choice.

But, as with any ‘obvious’ Oxbridge interview question, there is more to it than might initially seem. One might want to begin with a personal example: when have you not wanted a choice? Have you been to a restaurant and been overwhelmed by a huge menu? Or perhaps skipped through all 1000 channels on your TV, only to be unable to decide whether to watch a film or a football match? Indeed, how many coffee shops are there on the average high street now?

Psychologists have named the feeling caused by this excess of choice ‘decision fatigue’. We might think choice is a good thing initially, but after too many choices one loses the desire to keep choosing. People often find this when choosing a car. One begins optimistically, contemplating the options seriously: before long, however, the tedium of choosing red or brown leather trimming for the rear passenger seats takes over and we tire.

Surely it is no bad thing to be tired from having too much control? Perhaps, at its most innocuous. But this could be manipulated by the unscrupulous. Think about supermarkets. After 20 minutes of weighing up which brand of coffee to buy, or which offer to take advantage of, our willpower is much more easily overwhelmed by the cheap confectionery on offer at the tills, which we don’t need but succumb to anyway. Likewise, judges or jurors presiding over cases often pay less attention to the evidence presented at the end of the day rather than the beginning. What if the crucial flaw in the case is later on? Are they less rigorous by teatime?

HSPS Cambridge Interview Questions

Here are some examples of questions that HSPS students have been asked in interviews. Remember, no two interviews are the same. We strongly recommend that you use these questions to help you to think laterally about your chosen subject rather than learn and rehearse answers to them.

An interviewer will ask a particular question if they think that you might have come across the ideas through study, current affairs, or something you mention in your Personal Statement.

• How do we know who we are? And how can social scientists find this out?
• Can we find out who we are by just eliminating everything that we are not?
• What is beyond good and evil?
• Do we have universal human rights that are applicable to everyone?
• Plato’s Republic – is Plato’s society better than democracy? (If not, why not?) Is there a way to merge elements of Plato’s government with our society, yet still keeping our notions of equality, democracy etc?
• Do we truly have independent thought?
• Are our thoughts not independent if they come from the desire to question/ resist authority and create our own values?
• What makes people resist the values of others?
• In your personal statement you talk about the fact that we have “post-truth politics”. What impact does this have on democracy? And if post-truth politics prevails, what will be the impact on democracy in 100 years time?
• If you were to do a project on climate change, what would you focus on?
• What is class?
• Why are divorce rates rising?
• In your opinion, what was the most important political event of the last 100 years?
• Discuss the pros and cons of joining the Euro.
• Why do you think communism was unsuccessful in the Russian countryside?
• What would you say to someone who claims women have equal opportunities already?
• Discuss the Enlightenment.
• What do you think about unemployment and the effects of the ‘New Deal’?
• Why do we need a government?
• What is the future of Conservatism/Socialism etc.?
• How does the British landscape differ now from how it was in 1983?
• Is there a tension between British Nationalism and local patriotism?
• Does the welfare state trap people in poverty?
• Distinguish between a society, a state and an economy.
• What is federalism? How does it differ from the current British political system?

How Dukes Plus Can Help

We hope you found practising with these HSPS Cambridge interview questions useful.

If you’d like specialist coaching for your Cambridge interview, our Cambridge interview tutoring includes highly realistic full mock interviews plus feedback from our expert team of Cambridge-graduate tutors. Some of our packages also include a session with a former admissions tutor at Oxbridge – someone with direct experience of interviewing candidates for an Oxford or Cambridge college.