The University of Oxford is the dream of many students, and every year, countless global top students compete for valuable offers, and the competition is so fierce that many people feel that it is unattainable. In this issue, we invite Danny Liang, the winner of the 2024 Oxford University Engineering Offer from Shanghai Nuomei School, to share with us his exam preparation experience and learning views. 
Oxford interview "overturned" but was admitted? I applied for an engineering major, so the interview mainly examined mathematics and physics, and after I was invited, Liu Bo and different teachers in the doctoral supervisor group gave me three or four mock interview classes every week. Although I had gone through many rounds of mock interviews and was mentally and skillfully prepared, I still "overturned" during the actual interview. During the interview, there was a question that I didn't have an idea for, and I really panicked at the time, and the professor who interviewed me gave some hints, but I still didn't do it in the end, so the professor had to move on to the following questions. It would be false to say that it would not affect the mood of doing the next few questions, but I still quickly calmed down and let myself not think about it and only focus on doing the questions. I think the interview at Oxford mainly tests the interviewer's ability in two aspects: one is personal expression ability, your own ideas must be clearly expressed, so that the interviewer knows your thinking process, and it is not possible to "close the microphone" to do the questions yourself; The second is the ability to adapt on the spot, because it is impossible to ** what questions the interviewer will make, so you must be calm. In the round of mock interviews of Dr. Nuomei's supervisors, the teachers helped me figure out the idea of doing the questions, and at the same time, the atmosphere of each simulation tried to be close to the real interview, which allowed me to maintain communication with the interviewing professor when I found that I could not do it in the interview, and would correct the parts I found wrong in time. Therefore, it may be that I stabilized my mentality and communicated clearly and smoothly with the interviewer, so that this "mistake" during the interview did not affect my final admission. 
Contest "useless"? I think the role of competitions for people with particularly good grades is not to participate in the high-value competitions, what rankings or awards they have obtained, so as to make their essays "good-looking", but to improve their abilities in the competition, expand their horizons, and gain experience. Oxford's selection criteria are not necessarily based on how well studied and advanced the candidate's professional field of study is, but the candidate's need to see the potential in this professional direction. You want to give your professor the feeling that you are a person with potential, even if you are not a top scholar right now, but with the resources of Oxford, you have the potential to become an elite in your field. My essay also reflects this, I did not write about what competitions I participated in, what projects I did, etc., but wrote about my experience of learning and researching the knowledge of this major, mainly showing my learning ability, proving to Oxford that I have the ability to complete the course well when I go to university, and will have the ability to study at a deeper level with the blessing of Oxford's teachers and resources. Of course, the competition wasn't all useless for me, it helped me choose my direction. At first, I wanted to develop in the direction of mathematics, my advantage subject, so I also participated in some mathematics competitions, but after participating in several competitions, I found that I was not very interested, and after talking to the teachers and parents**, I found that I was very interested in maglev trains, so I established my willingness to apply in the direction of engineering. From this point of view, participating in the competition can be regarded as a process of "trial and error". 
"No way to learn"? Learning methods and learning habits are different from person to person, not a one-size-fits-all thing, so maybe I can't give a learning method that is suitable for everyone, this needs to be explored by yourself, some people cantilever pierce the strands, some people sharpen their guns, no matter what the method, what suits you is the best. The advice I can give to the younger students is that, first of all, the sooner you find the direction, the sooner you can prepare, whether it is the improvement of academic performance or the preparation of activity experience, it takes a lot of time, and after finding the goal, you can learn and improve in a more targeted manner. After I decided to apply for engineering, I went to study a lot of engineering-related courses and research, which helped me accumulate a lot of professional knowledge and helped me get a good score in the written interview. Secondly, you should leave enough time for yourself to study carefully for the written test of the school you are applying to, and lay a solid foundation in the early stage, so that you will be more comfortable in the future. For example, for the Oxford written test, you should not only aim to meet the criteria for entering the interview, but also to perform at the best level within your ability, so as to lay a solid foundation for your subsequent interviews and reserve a little flexible space. 
I would like to thank Danny Liang for sharing his exam preparation experience and learning views, and I believe that Danny Liang's views will bring some new thinking and different insights to students. I wish Danny Liang the best of luck with the resources and training of the University of Oxford!