university interview technique

One of our Chemistry students was interviewed at Oxford last year. The Professor interviewing him casually leaned back in his chair, took a sip of tea and then asked him how he would go about calculating how many molecules of liquid there were in his cup.

Now I like to think I would have been able to answer that, but pressure in interview situations does funny things to people. (As it happens he gave a text book answer and got his place on the back of straight A grades).

Another variation on this is to be asked to estimate how many molecules of air there are in the room.

It struck me that if you are going for interview at a prestigious university, or for a course that requires near faultless grades like medicine, then it might be an idea to share any interview experiences.

Leave any details, challenging questions or even any general tales of woe resulting from feeble interview technique in the hope of serving the greater good, by commenting on this post.

alkali metals and water

By the time you reach year 9 you'll have probably seen the group 1 metals lithium, sodium and potassium reacting in water. We can't get rubidium and caesium in school for obvious reasons....

aluminium and bromine

The reaction of aluminium with bromine. Who would have thought that aluminium was so reactive anyway? We wrap our food in it, don't we?

Being protected by an air tight, water tight layer of aluminium oxide on its surface, it is perfectly safe to use as cooking foil. However, bromine is a bit frisky, and once it strips off this thin oxide layer to reveal the reactive aluminium metal beneath, the resulting reaction is highly exothermic.