Interview

The shape of an interview response on Paper 2:

1. Framing paragraph (~50 words). Sets up who, why, when. 'Maya Chen, a Year 11 student at Northgate Secondary, has spent the past eighteen months campaigning for the council to improve street lighting on the path between her school and the Park Road bus stop. She spoke to us this week.'

2. 5-6 Q&A pairs. Each pair on a new line, with speaker labels.

Interviewer: What started this campaign for you?

Maya: Honestly? Walking home one night last winter…

3. No formal sign-off. Interviews end with the final answer. No 'Thank you for your time' (or one polite line max if you really want it).

Speaker label format options:

• Full names: 'Interviewer: / Maya Chen:'
• Abbreviations: 'INT: / MC:'
• Just roles: 'Interviewer: / Student:'

Pick ONE format and stay consistent.

Within Q&A pairs:

• New line for each speaker.
• The interviewer's questions are usually shorter than the answers.
• Answers vary in length — some short and direct, some longer and substantive.

Cambridge tip. Mark schemes describe interview-form mastery as 'using the conventions of the form effectively'. The visible structure (speaker labels, framing intro, varied Q&A pacing) IS the form.

Strong interviews use FIVE different question types, each with a different purpose.

1. Opening question — establish topic.

'Maya, you've been doing this for over a year. What got you started?'

Usually invites a substantive answer. Sets the tone.

2. Open exploratory question — invite reflection.

'What did you find when you spoke to other students?'

Open ('what', 'how', 'why') rather than closed (yes/no). Gives the interviewee room to develop.

3. Specific factual question — get details.

'How many incidents have been reported on this stretch?'

Pulls concrete information. The answer is short, specific.

4. Challenging question — raise counter-argument.

'Some councillors initially argued that the cost was prohibitive. How did you respond?'

This is where the COUNTER-ARGUMENT lives. The interviewee's response defeats the opposing view — and the interviewer has framed the challenge fairly.

5. Closing question — forward-looking.

'What needs to happen next?'

Gives the interviewee a final substantive answer. Often the most memorable lines come here.

Why all five. A 5-question interview that uses all five types reads as professional. A 5-question interview that uses ONLY open exploratory questions ('Tell me about…' / 'What do you think about…') flattens the rhythm and feels amateur.

Cambridge tip. Mark scheme: 'voice and tone appropriate to form'. The interviewer's voice should feel like a real journalist's — varying their approach as they would in an actual interview.

The interviewee carries most of the substantive content. To stop them sounding like a generic position-paper, give them a distinctive voice through four moves:

1. Distinctive vocabulary.

• A scientist uses precise technical vocabulary.
• A teenager uses youthful idiom.
• A politician uses careful hedging ('to some extent', 'on balance').
• An activist uses direct, urgent vocabulary.

Match the vocabulary to the character.

2. Pacing variation.

Some answers are short and decisive. Others are longer and more reflective. The same character should give BOTH kinds across an interview — short for direct questions, longer for substantive ones.

3. Self-correction or hesitation.

Real speech includes 'well…', 'actually, let me put that differently', 'honestly?'. A small amount of this signals authentic voice.

'Honestly? Walking home one night last winter and realising I couldn't see my own feet.'

The 'Honestly?' marks a thinking pause — feels real.

4. Favourite framings or repeated phrases.

A character who twice uses 'the way I see it' or 'I went to the meetings with the figures, not the feelings' has a more memorable voice than one who never repeats. The repetition signals a settled way of seeing the world.

Worked example. Maya in the model interview:

• 'Forty-six per cent.' — precise number, dropped in.
• 'I went to the meetings with the figures, not the feelings. The figures helped. I think the feelings did too, eventually — but the figures got us in the door.' — characteristic pivot, dry tone.
• 'Stop celebrating. Start checking.' — short, decisive imperatives.

Three different paces, all the same voice. We feel the character.

Cambridge tip. Examiner reports praise top-band interviews for 'authentic voice and varied pacing'. The candidate has imagined a real person being interviewed — not a position-paper with a name.

Reading marks (15/40) STILL apply to interview responses. Source-text ideas live in the INTERVIEWEE's answers — woven naturally into their voice.

Natural integration phrases:

• 'The first article I read while researching it described a survey showing that…'
• 'The second article was about LED retrofits in the borough next to ours — they cost around forty per cent less…'
• 'There was a study cited in last month's piece that…'
• 'A friend sent me an article that put numbers on what I'd been feeling…'

The interviewee positions the source texts as material they have read or encountered. Their answer then USES the data or example as evidence.

What to avoid:

• 'Text A says…' — too academic.
• 'According to the second source…' — too academic.
• Quoting source-text passages verbatim — usually too long.

Worked example:

'Interviewer: Some councillors initially argued that the cost was prohibitive. How did you respond?

Maya: Politely, mostly. The second article I read in this campaign was about LED lantern retrofits in the borough next to ours — they cost around forty per cent less than full lamp-post replacement and were paid back in reduced incident-related costs within twelve months. So I went to the meetings with the figures, not the feelings.'

The source-text data (LED retrofits, cost figures) is present, but it's MAYA who uses it, in her own voice. The Reading marks are earned through the WAY the interviewee uses the texts, not through labelling them.

Cambridge tip. Mark scheme: 'using ideas from texts skilfully'. In interview voice, 'skilfully' means making the source-text material feel like the interviewee's own knowledge, drawn from their reading and research.