Cambridge Natural Sciences Interview China: Gaokao and A-Level Routes for 2027
What your own course has covered, set against what an A-level-trained interviewer can assume.
Get the Organic Chemistry pack — £180What your own course has covered, set against what an A-level-trained interviewer can assume.
Get the Organic Chemistry pack — £180Cambridge interviews Natural Sciences applicants between 7 and 18 December 2026, and says the stream you declare and “the courses that you are currently studying” will affect the questions. For an applicant from China, your own syllabus is the place to start. Under China’s current national curriculum, Gaokao physics teaches simple harmonic motion but not stationary waves, Gaokao chemistry teaches stereoisomerism but not rate equations, and the maths examines no integration at all.
This page takes the two routes Chinese applicants use separately and never merges them: the Gaokao, which Cambridge accepts at most Colleges and Oxford does not accept, and international A-levels at a Chinese international school, which Cambridge accepts as comparable to UK A levels. For each, it sets what your course contains against the A-level content every UK exam board must teach.
Practise on the topics your course did not reach.
Our Oxbridge interview question packs are written by specialist tutors: our own practice questions in the style of the interview, ten to a pack, each with a worked answer. Seven of them suit Natural Sciences, at £180 each, and the biology, chemistry and physics samples are free, so you can read one of our questions before deciding.
See the seven packs for Natural SciencesEverything here is for 2027 entry, checked at source in September 2026 against Cambridge’s course, College and application pages, China’s Ministry of Education curriculum standards, the Cambridge International syllabuses and the Department for Education’s A-level content. Your College’s invitation is the document that governs your own case.
Cambridge answers this in its own words, and in more detail than most applicants read. On the Natural Sciences course page it asks every applicant to say whether they are interested in Biological or Physical Sciences, and adds: “Your choice of application stream, and the courses that you are currently studying, will affect the types of questions that are asked at interview.” The Natural Sciences Tripos, which teaches the course, gives the mechanism: “If selected for interview, the choice helps a College assign biological or physical sciences interviewers.”
For the Physical stream, the course page goes further. It is best to apply for Physical Sciences “if you have studied Physics and Maths A levels”, it says, because “your interview will be on subjects that you have already studied.” That sentence is written for A-level students, and the course is built on the same footing. Part IA Physics lists A-level Physics or Further Mathematics “including the section on Mechanics” as essential, and every Part IA physicist takes IA Mathematics. Cambridge describes its Physical entrants in A-level terms too: among those who took A levels and started in 2018, 2019 and 2023, 97% achieved at least A*A*A* and 92% took Further Mathematics.
So two things meet in the room. What an interviewer can assume you know is set by the A-level background above. What Cambridge says the questions will follow is set by the course you actually took. For a Gaokao student those are different courses, and the difference is specific enough to write down.
The fourth published sentence is the one applicants most often miss. My Cambridge Application, the online form you complete after submitting UCAS, asks anyone leaving school in 2026 or 2027 “What topics have you studied?”, and gives its reason in the form itself: “If you’re selected for an interview, interviewers may ask questions based on what you’ve studied.” You write the list, in English, in a field limited to 300 characters a subject, and you include “what you expect to study up to the end of November 2026.” For a Gaokao student that box is where your course becomes visible to the people interviewing you, so a later section of this page shows how to fill it.
The rest looks like any Cambridge science interview. Most applicants have one or two interviews lasting a total of 35 minutes to an hour. Cambridge says you may be asked about recent topics from school, and may be asked to share your workings on a problem-solving question, which “usually happens if you’ve applied to a science or mathematics course.”
At Cambridge, yes, at most Colleges. At Oxford, no: Oxford has no Natural Sciences course, and its international qualifications table lists the Gaokao as “Not accepted” for every course. Cambridge’s international entry requirements say the Gaokao “is considered suitable preparation for Cambridge by most Colleges”, then sort the Colleges into three lists. Thirteen normally make a Gaokao offer conditional on a rank in the top 0.1% of your province. Eight ask for at least 90% in each of three relevant core subjects, or overall performance in the top 1% to 3%. Eight do not regard the Gaokao alone as suitable preparation.
Natural Sciences is taught at every College, so the course narrows nothing further. Age does: Hughes Hall and Wolfson, both on the first list, take only students aged 21 or over. Counted from Cambridge’s lists, that leaves 19 Colleges that accept the Gaokao and are open to a school-leaver. That is our count, not a figure Cambridge publishes. Our guide to Oxbridge interviews from China sets out all three lists, the interview format at each College and the colleges that hit a Gaokao applicant twice.
Three details on the same pages matter more for a scientist than for most applicants. The first-list Colleges typically expect Gaokao applicants to show additional achievement, and the example Cambridge gives is “relevant science Olympiads”; the same passage adds, “Particular attention will be paid to relevant subjects studied”, which for Natural Sciences means the sciences you chose to sit. Admissions tests still apply, so a Gaokao applicant sits the ESAT like everyone else. And among the Colleges that add conditions to Physical Sciences offers, Cambridge marks Trinity, a first-list College, “require Further Mathematics”. Cambridge does not say how that applies to a Gaokao applicant, so ask Trinity before you choose it.
Two first-list Colleges, Churchill and Emmanuel, interview every applicant in person, overseas applicants included. So do King’s and Selwyn, and both are on the third list, so a Gaokao-only applicant to either is shut out twice. For an applicant on international A-levels none of the three lists applies; and Jesus, which interviews UK-based Physical Natural Sciences applicants in person, interviews applicants based outside the UK online.
Declared Biological Sciences?
The two syllabus sections below are written for the Physical stream first, but the chemistry section applies to you as well. The Biological Sciences pack is ten of our own practice questions on warning colouration and mimicry, blood-vessel resistance, the Meselson–Stahl experiment and enzyme-inhibition kinetics, each with a worked answer from specialist tutors, at £180. Biology is one of the subjects with a free sample.
Get the Biological Sciences pack — £180Start with what the Gaokao examines. China’s national curriculum programme sets the national exam, and the graded subject exams that count towards admission, on the compulsory (必修) and selective-compulsory (选择性必修) courses together; the third tier, electives (选修), sits outside it. The rows below come from the Ministry of Education’s physics curriculum standard, 2017 edition revised 2020, read against that rule. Every absence was checked by reading the unit’s own content list and then searching the whole document, electives included, for the Chinese terms. The comparison is with the Department for Education’s A-level physics content, which every UK board must teach in full.
| What an A-level interviewer can assume | In Gaokao physics? | What the Chinese standard says |
|---|---|---|
| Simple harmonic motion, the pendulum, forced oscillation and resonance | Yes | First selective-compulsory module: describe SHM with a formula and a graph (简谐运动); pendulum period; resonance |
| Momentum and its conservation | Yes | Impulse, the momentum theorem and conservation of momentum (动量守恒定律) |
| Photoelectric effect, wave–particle duality | Yes | Einstein’s photoelectric equation is required (光电效应方程) |
| Electromagnetic induction, Faraday and Lenz | Yes, and more | Also self-induction, eddy currents, alternating current and transformers, which A-level Physics does not require |
| Stationary waves | No | The waves unit covers wave features, wave speed, reflection, refraction, interference, diffraction and the Doppler effect; superposition appears only as a demonstration |
| Gravitational field and potential for point masses | No | Students know the law of gravitation, calculate a satellite’s orbital speed and know the second and third cosmic velocities, without deriving them |
| Capacitor charge and discharge, treated quantitatively | Observed only | “观察电容器的充、放电现象”: observe charging and discharging; no time constant, no exponential |
| Stress, strain and the Young modulus | No | Hooke’s law only (胡克定律) |
| Moments | No | Equilibrium of concurrent forces only (共点力的平衡), forces acting through one point. In the UK, moments are compulsory A-level Mathematics content |
Two cautions keep the table honest. Simple harmonic motion is in the Gaokao course, taught in the first selective-compulsory module alongside the pendulum and resonance, so any advice that tells a Chinese physicist to learn it from scratch has the wrong syllabus in mind. And the table describes China’s current national standard. Check it against what your own school taught, and say a topic was not in your course only if it was not.
What the absences share is calculus. Stationary waves, capacitor discharge and gravitational potential are the points where A-level physics starts to lean on exponentials and integration, and the Gaokao physics standard contains no calculus at all: the Chinese words for calculus, derivative and integral do not appear in it.
Because the Cambridge course assumes it from the first week. Every Natural Sciences student takes a mathematics subject in Year 1 alongside three sciences, Mathematics for Physical Sciences or Mathematics for Biological Sciences, and Part IA Physics requires IA Mathematics. The A-level Mathematics content every UK board teaches includes the Fundamental Theorem of Calculus, integration by substitution and by parts, and first-order differential equations with separable variables.
China’s maths standard puts all of that outside the Gaokao. Definite integrals are taught only in an elective calculus topic, which the scope rule excludes. In the pages the exam covers, the only appearances of the word for integral are inside the word for calculus, mostly in a short history-of-calculus essay. Differential equations do not appear anywhere in the standard, electives included, and the chain rule is examined only for composite functions of the form f(ax+b). Put plainly: under the current national curriculum, a Gaokao-only student has never been examined on integrating anything.
That is a preparation problem, not an eligibility one, and the differentiation underneath it is already in your course: the product and quotient rules are examined. Before a Physical Natural Sciences interview, learn the standard integrals, integration by substitution and by parts, and how to separate the variables in a first-order differential equation. Then use them on the physics in the table: the exponential discharge of a capacitor, and the energy needed to move a mass far from a planet. A Biological applicant needs less of this, but the Year 1 mathematics subject is compulsory in both streams.
Work the physics your syllabus stopped short of.
The Dynamics and Fields pack is ten of our own practice questions on gravitational fields and orbital mechanics, including escape velocity, geosynchronous orbit and the null point between Earth and Moon, each worked through by specialist tutors. It costs £180, and physics is one of the subjects with a free sample.
Get the Dynamics and Fields pack — £180Chemistry matters in both streams. In Cambridge’s profile of A-level entrants, 97% of Biological entrants and 89% of Physical entrants took it, and Part IA Chemistry lists A-level Chemistry as essential. The Ministry of Education’s chemistry standard, also the 2017 edition revised 2020, was read the same way as the physics one, and it holds two traps for anyone who checks it by keyword: two topics that look absent are taught under other names.
| What an A-level interviewer can assume | In Gaokao chemistry? | What the Chinese standard says |
|---|---|---|
| Rate equations, orders of reaction, the rate-determining step | No | Rates are expressed, measured and linked to temperature, concentration, pressure and catalysts; reactions “have a pathway” (化学反应是有历程的). No rate law, no order |
| Electrode potentials | No | How cells, batteries and electrolysis work (工作原理); no potentials |
| Entropy and Gibbs energy to predict feasibility | Qualitative only | Students know that direction depends on enthalpy change and entropy change; Gibbs energy is not named |
| Named organic mechanisms with curly arrows | No | Addition, substitution, elimination and redox are taught as reaction types (加成、取代、消去); electrophiles, nucleophiles and radicals are not |
| Stereoisomerism, including optical isomerism | Yes | Stereoisomerism (立体异构) and chirality (手性) are content requirements |
| Shapes of molecules | Yes | Predicted “using the relevant theories and models” (相关理论和模型); the term for electron-pair repulsion itself never appears |
| IR and NMR in structure determination | Yes | 红外光谱、核磁共振 |
| Equilibrium constants; Hess’s law | Yes | 化学平衡常数; 盖斯定律 |
| Unit cells; sigma and pi bonds | Yes, beyond A level | A whole selective-compulsory module on structure (晶胞; σ键、π键) |
The four gaps sit in the chemistry interviewers reach for most readily: why a reaction goes at the rate it does, and how its electrons move. The repair is the same in either stream. Learn to write a rate equation and read an order from data. Then draw curly-arrow mechanisms for the five types the A-level content names: radical substitution, electrophilic addition, nucleophilic substitution, electrophilic substitution and nucleophilic addition. Biology is different: this page claims no biology gap, and a Biological applicant’s clearest risks are the chemistry above and the Year 1 mathematics.
Start from the subjects you actually sit. Physics, chemistry and biology are choice subjects in the Gaokao. In Beijing, for example, students take three graded subjects chosen from politics, history, geography, physics, chemistry and biology; other provinces run their own models, which this page did not check. The three you chose decide which Natural Sciences stream your course supports.
Cambridge’s own advice points the same way. The Tripos recommends choosing “the entry route that best aligns to your strengths in your current studies”, and notes that some Colleges ask for a further preference, Chemistry being its example. The ESAT works on the same principle. Natural Sciences applicants take Mathematics 1 and any two of Biology, Chemistry, Physics and Mathematics 2, and the Tripos advises choosing “the sections that best align with your current studies.” The test never records your stream, so the interview is the first place it matters. Our page on the Physical stream after the ESAT and its Biological counterpart set out what each stream then asks of you.
The entrant profiles show what each stream usually brings. Among A-level entrants who started in 2018, 2019 and 2023, Physical students took Physics (97%), Further Mathematics (92%) and Chemistry (89%). Biological students took Biology (98%), Chemistry (97%), Further Mathematics (36%) and Physics (29%). A Gaokao physicist and chemist has a Physical profile with a calculus gap. A Gaokao chemist and biologist has a Biological profile whose clearest gap is the chemistry in the previous section.
Cambridge asks you to “Tell us about the subjects and topics you’ve studied as part of your AS and A Levels, or any equivalent qualifications.” The Gaokao is your equivalent qualification, but its topic names are Chinese and its boundaries are not A-level boundaries, so a literal translation can mislead the reader in either direction.
The date matters too. Cambridge asks you to include what you expect to study up to the end of November 2026. On Beijing’s official course timetable, the selective-compulsory physics modules run through the second and final years of senior high school, and schools are forbidden to “finish courses early” (提前结束课程). Other provinces set their own timetables, so list what your school will have taught by the end of November, and nothing beyond it.
Three rules make the box useful to an interviewer. Use the English name an A-level physicist or chemist would recognise, because that is who reads it. Be exact about limits: “capacitance (charging and discharging observed)” tells an interviewer something that “capacitors” does not. And never list a topic your course did not teach, because Cambridge says the questions may be based on it.
| Your course (the Chinese standard’s term) | English name for the box |
|---|---|
| 简谐运动、单摆、受迫振动与共振 | Simple harmonic motion; pendulum; forced oscillation and resonance |
| 动量定理、动量守恒定律 | Impulse; conservation of momentum |
| 机械波、干涉与衍射、多普勒效应 | Waves; interference and diffraction; Doppler effect |
| 光电效应、波粒二象性 | Photoelectric effect; wave–particle duality |
| 楞次定律、法拉第电磁感应定律、交变电流、变压器 | Electromagnetic induction (Lenz, Faraday); alternating current; transformers |
| 电容器（观察充、放电现象） | Capacitance (charging and discharging observed) |
| 共点力的平衡 | Equilibrium of concurrent forces (not moments) |
| 万有引力定律、人造卫星环绕速度 | Newton’s law of gravitation; orbital speed |
| 立体异构、手性 | Stereoisomerism; chirality |
| 分子的空间结构 | Shapes of molecules |
| 红外光谱、核磁共振 | IR and NMR in structure determination |
| 晶胞、σ键和π键 | Unit cells; sigma and pi bonds |
| 原电池、电解池 | Electrochemical cells and electrolysis (how they work) |
| 加成、取代、消去反应 | Addition, substitution and elimination reactions |
| 导数（四则运算；复合函数限于 f(ax+b)） | Differentiation: product and quotient rules; chain rule for f(ax+b) |
A physics entry built from that table might read: “Gaokao Physics: SHM, pendulum, resonance; momentum; waves, interference, diffraction, Doppler; photoelectric effect; EM induction, AC, transformers; gravitation, orbital speed; capacitance (observed only); equilibrium of concurrent forces.” That is inside the 300-character limit, it tells the interviewer where your course stops, and every item on it is something you can talk about.
The seven packs for Natural Sciences — £180 each
Each is ten of our own practice questions in the style of the interview, with prompts and a worked answer for every one, written by specialist tutors. Two of them go straight at the Gaokao gaps on this page.
Free samples: chemistry, physics and biology.
Organic Chemistry — £180 Dynamics and Fields — £180 Inorganic Chemistry — £180 Biochemistry — £180 Biological Sciences — £180 Evolution & Behaviour — £180 Physiology — £180Far less of one, and none in the sciences on the most widely named board. Cambridge accepts “international A levels offered by Cambridge International, Oxford AQA or Pearson Edexcel, as they are comparable to UK AS and A levels.” On the Cambridge International syllabuses for exams in 2025 to 2027, every physics and chemistry gap in the tables above is closed. Physics (9702) teaches stationary waves, gravitational potential for a point mass (φ = −GM/r), capacitor discharge with the time constant τ = RC, the Young modulus, and moments and torque. Chemistry (9701) teaches rate equations and orders, standard electrode potentials, Gibbs free energy, and named mechanisms with curly arrows.
Two cautions. Which boards Chinese international schools use is not published, and Pearson’s and OxfordAQA’s international science specifications were not checked for this page, so read your own specification rather than assuming. And a matched syllabus changes what you prepare, not how hard the interview is: on this route the interviewer and your course share a topic list, so the preparation is almost entirely problem-solving aloud. The larger difference for you is admissions. None of Cambridge’s Gaokao lists applies, and if Oxford accepts your qualification (check its international qualifications list), its separate science courses become an option.
Oxford has no Natural Sciences course; it admits to separate science degrees, and it lists the Gaokao as “Not accepted”, so an applicant from China applies there on another qualification. Oxford interviews shortlisted applicants online in December 2026, and its three courses nearest to Natural Sciences run differently:
Oxford’s chemistry department publishes its own figures. In the 2025 round it received 1015 applications, shortlisted 690 for interview and made 218 offers; 453 applications came from EU and overseas applicants, who received 44 offers. That is a group of countries, not China, and Oxford publishes no figure for China by course, so none is given here. The department also records that its 2025 interviews took place remotely via Microsoft Teams.
Cambridge’s main interview period for 2027 entry runs from 7 December to 18 December 2026. By then the ESAT is behind you: candidates sitting in China, Macau or Hong Kong could book the October 2026 sitting only on 12–13 October, each module is 40 minutes and 27 multiple-choice questions, and results reach candidates approximately four weeks after the sitting.
Cambridge’s application tells applicants in China to select UTC +8, and says it will try to schedule your interview at an appropriate time for you and the interviewers. The UK is on GMT in December, so a 09:00 UK interview is 17:00 in Beijing and a 17:00 UK interview is 01:00 the next morning; that is our arithmetic, not a published table. If a genuine exam falls on a likely interview day, exams are among the reasons Cambridge accepts; holidays, in most cases, are events it says it cannot schedule around. Our page on interview time zones for overseas applicants covers the clock in more depth.
Rehearse the conversation, not just the content.
On either route, the interview is a conversation in English about a problem you have not seen. Our 30 packs across 17 subjects, at £180 each, are written by specialist tutors: our own practice questions in the style of the interview, never inside knowledge. Cambridge says outside services “do not have access to any exclusive information”, and that includes us.
Browse all 30 packs and the free samplesLeading Tuition is rated 4.8 out of 5 from 59 reviews on Trustpilot, and 91% of our students reach their target grades. That is the company’s rating and outcome figure, not a rating of any pack, and neither is an endorsement by either university.
Yes, at most Colleges. Cambridge says the Gaokao is considered suitable preparation by most Colleges and publishes three lists: thirteen Colleges normally ask for a rank in the top 0.1% of your province, eight ask for at least 90% in each of three relevant core subjects or the top 1% to 3%, and eight do not regard the Gaokao alone as suitable preparation. Hughes Hall and Wolfson, on the first list, admit only students aged 21 or over, so by our count 19 Colleges accept the Gaokao and are open to a school-leaver. You still sit the ESAT.
Yes. China's physics curriculum standard teaches simple harmonic motion, the simple pendulum and forced oscillation and resonance in its first selective-compulsory module, which is inside the Gaokao's scope. What it does not contain is stationary waves, gravitational potential for point masses, quantitative capacitor discharge, the Young modulus and moments. Those, and the integration they lean on, are the physics to revise before a Physical Natural Sciences interview.
Four things an A-level student is taught: rate equations and orders, electrode potentials, using entropy and Gibbs energy to predict feasibility, and named organic mechanisms drawn with curly arrows. The Gaokao chemistry standard does teach stereoisomerism, molecular shapes, IR and NMR in structure determination, and unit cells, so do not assume a gap there. The four gaps matter in both streams, because Cambridge's profile shows 97% of Biological entrants and 89% of Physical entrants took A-level Chemistry.
Do not rely on it. Cambridge's application asks school-leavers what topics they have studied and says that if you are selected for an interview, interviewers may ask questions based on what you have studied. You write the list yourself, in English, up to 300 characters a subject, including what you expect to study up to the end of November 2026. Use the names an A-level student would recognise, be exact about limits, and list nothing your course did not teach.
Not in the sciences, if your school uses Cambridge International. Cambridge accepts international A levels from Cambridge International, Oxford AQA and Pearson Edexcel as comparable to UK A levels, and the Cambridge International Physics and Chemistry syllabuses for 2025 to 2027 teach stationary waves, gravitational potential, capacitor discharge, the Young modulus, moments, rate equations, electrode potentials, Gibbs energy and mechanisms. Pearson and OxfordAQA science specifications were not checked here, so read your own.
No. Oxford's international qualifications table lists the Gaokao as not accepted, so an applicant from China applies to Oxford on a different qualification. Oxford has no Natural Sciences course: its nearest courses are separate degrees, such as Physics, which requires the ESAT with Mathematics 1, Mathematics 2 and Physics, and Chemistry and Biology, neither of which is on UAT-UK's list of courses requiring a test.
Cambridge's main interview period runs from 7 December to 18 December 2026. Cambridge asks applicants in China to select UTC +8 and says it will try to schedule interviews at an appropriate time for applicants and interviewers. With the UK on GMT, a 09:00 UK interview is 17:00 in Beijing and a 17:00 UK interview is 01:00 the next morning. Exams are a reason Cambridge accepts for avoiding a date; holidays usually are not.
No. Cambridge says companies offering interview preparation for a fee are not endorsed by the University and do not have access to any exclusive information, and that all official guidance is available free. That includes us. Our packs are our own practice questions in the style of the interview, not real or recalled questions; what they offer is practice at reasoning aloud about unfamiliar problems, not inside knowledge.
For the subject itself, our Cambridge Natural Sciences interview guide and the wider Natural Sciences interview page cover what happens in the room. Applicants on other systems can compare the Hong Kong and Singapore versions of this page, each built on its own syllabus. The arrangements every international applicant shares are in Oxbridge interviews from overseas, and the packs’ contents are listed on the Natural Sciences question page.
Start with the chemistry both streams share: the Organic Chemistry pack, ten of our own practice questions on mechanisms and rate laws, each with a worked answer.
Get the Organic Chemistry pack — £180Read a free chemistry sample first, or the physics or biology one. The full catalogue is 30 packs across 17 subjects at £180 each.