Free practice questions for the UCL medicine interview, with the interview format taken from the university's own admissions pages.
UCL runs Multiple Mini Interviews. UCL publishes up to eight stations, with a minute to read the instructions outside each station and five minutes inside with one interviewer asking two or three questions. Marking is built on NHS values plus academic curiosity, motivation, professionalism, problem solving, teamwork and communication. Home fee paying applicants interview in person on campus and overseas applicants interview online, on a rolling basis from December to the end of March. UCL makes no offers without interview. Check your invitation for current timings.
Original MedicHut practice questions. Real interviews may differ.
UCL asks interviewers to score candidates against a published set of values rather than a free-form conversation.
1. In your own words, summarise why you want to study medicine.
2. Which published value do you think your motivation best demonstrates?
3. How would you make sure a structured question still lets your genuine motivation come through?
Follow-up: The interviewer asks you to answer again in exactly two sentences. What would you say?
Medicine involves at least five years of training followed by many more years of postgraduate practice.
1. What keeps your motivation steady across such a long pathway?
2. How would you judge whether your motivation is realistic rather than idealistic?
3. What would you do if an early part of training felt much harder than you expected?
Follow-up: A doctor you shadow tells you they regret choosing medicine. How does this affect your thinking?
Many applicants describe wanting to combine science with helping people.
1. What makes your own version of this motivation specific to you?
2. What evidence from your own experience supports it?
3. How would you explain your motivation to someone who has never met you?
Follow-up: Suppose you found in year one that you preferred the scientific side of the course to direct patient contact. What would you do?
UCL receives around 2,500 to 3,000 applications a year for around 313 Home places, making competition for interview itself intense.
1. How do you stay motivated through a competitive and uncertain application process?
2. What would you do if you were not successful this year?
3. How do you plan to judge your own progress and readiness along the way?
Follow-up: If a careers adviser suggested a related course as a quicker, less competitive route into healthcare, how would you respond?
Some applicants are drawn to medicine by a personal experience of illness, others by academic interest in science.
1. Which is closer to your own route into applying, and why?
2. What is the risk of relying only on a personal experience as your sole motivation?
3. What is the risk of relying only on academic interest?
Follow-up: How would you respond if an interviewer suggested your reasons sounded better suited to a research career?
UCL's selection procedure places weight on predicted grades, UCAT scores and interview performance rather than personal statement content for shortlisting.
1. What have you found out about how UCL structures its MBBS course?
2. Why does this structure appeal to you compared with other ways of teaching medicine?
3. What do you still want to find out before you would be ready to start?
Follow-up: If you found that two parts of the course did not suit your preferred way of learning, how would you adapt?
UCL runs a contextual offer scheme called Access UCL for eligible applicants.
1. Why do you think it matters for a medical school to run contextual admissions schemes?
2. What would you personally bring to a diverse cohort of medical students?
3. How might training alongside students from a wide range of backgrounds change how you practise medicine later?
Follow-up: How would you respond if a fellow student assumed you had an easier path into medicine than they did?
UCL is based in central London, with teaching hospitals and placements across the city.
1. What have you learned about the clinical settings linked to UCL's course?
2. Why does early contact with real clinical environments matter for a new medical student?
3. What concerns, if any, do you have about starting clinical contact early in your training?
Follow-up: If your first placement experience did not match your expectations, how would you respond?
You are comparing UCL with another medical school you have also applied to.
1. What specific features of UCL would you mention if asked to compare it with another course?
2. How did you check this information was accurate and current?
3. What would be the biggest personal adjustment in moving to UCL?
Follow-up: If you were offered places at both schools, what single piece of information would most influence your decision?
UCL interviews about 1,000 applicants a year out of several thousand applications.
1. What do you think UCL is specifically trying to identify in a candidate at interview, beyond grades and UCAT score?
2. How would you demonstrate this during a short structured interview?
3. What would you do if you felt a particular station had gone badly?
Follow-up: If you left an interview feeling you had not shown your best side at one station, what would you do afterwards?
Think about a period of work experience, paid work, or volunteering you have completed.
1. Describe a specific moment where you saw a healthcare professional demonstrate good practice.
2. What made this a good example, in your own words?
3. How has this shaped your expectations of medical training?
Follow-up: What would you have done if you had observed the opposite, a moment of poor practice?
Many applicants to UCL will have carried out virtual or in-person work experience.
1. What was the most useful thing you learned from your work experience that you could not have learned from reading?
2. How did this experience change your understanding of teamwork in healthcare?
3. What limitations does work experience have in preparing you for medical school?
Follow-up: If your work experience placement was cancelled at short notice, what steps would you take instead?
During a period of observation in a healthcare setting, you noticed a difference between how two professionals communicated with the same patient.
1. What differences in communication style did you notice?
2. Why might communication style matter as much as clinical knowledge?
3. What did this teach you about your own communication style?
Follow-up: How would you check whether your own communication style was working well with a patient?
You have spent time observing a multidisciplinary team, such as in a hospital ward or GP practice.
1. Describe one example of effective collaboration you observed.
2. What roles were involved, and how did they depend on each other?
3. What did you learn about the limits of a doctor's role within that team?
Follow-up: If you saw two team members disagree in front of a patient, what would you expect good practice to look like?
Reflect on an experience, inside or outside healthcare, where things did not go as planned.
1. What was the situation and what went wrong?
2. What specific insight into resilience or problem solving did you gain?
3. How did this experience inform the way you now plan for setbacks?
Follow-up: If a similar setback happened again next month, what would you do differently?
UCL scores candidates against a published set of values, which is likely to include self-awareness and honesty.
1. What do you consider your biggest area for improvement as a future medical student?
2. Give an example of when this has affected you.
3. What specific steps are you taking to address it before starting university?
Follow-up: How would you feel if a tutor identified this same weakness publicly during a teaching session?
Doctors are expected to maintain good standards of practice even under pressure.
1. Describe a time you had to keep high standards while under time pressure.
2. What helped you maintain those standards?
3. What would you do if you found you could not maintain them?
Follow-up: If a supervisor asked you to cut corners to save time, how would you respond?
Reflect on a piece of feedback, positive or negative, that significantly changed how you approached a task.
1. What was the feedback and how did you receive it at the time?
2. What did you change as a result?
3. Why is being open to feedback important in medical training?
Follow-up: How would you respond to feedback you believed was unfair?
Structured MMI stations often leave little time to think before answering.
1. How do you usually perform when you have very little preparation time?
2. What helps you think clearly in that kind of moment?
3. What would you do if you realised midway through an answer that you had misunderstood the question?
Follow-up: The interviewer gently points out you have misunderstood the task. How would you respond?
Resilience is important across a medical career that includes many competitive and stressful stages.
1. Describe a time you showed resilience after a setback.
2. What specifically helped you recover?
3. How do you plan to build resilience further before starting medical school?
Follow-up: If you faced a second setback shortly after the first, how would your approach change?
You are part of a sixth-form project team producing a presentation for younger pupils about a health topic. One member keeps missing meetings.
1. What steps would you take to address this?
2. How would you balance fairness to the absent member with fairness to the rest of the group?
3. What does this situation teach you about managing teams in medicine?
Follow-up: The member says they have been struggling with a family issue. How does this change your approach?
Imagine you are leading a small group project and two members strongly disagree about the best approach.
1. How would you facilitate a resolution?
2. What principles would guide your decision if no agreement is reached?
3. Why is this kind of mediation relevant to working in a clinical team?
Follow-up: One member tells you privately that they think you favoured the other person. How would you respond?
You are asked to be the spokesperson for a group project, although you were not the strongest contributor to the content.
1. How would you prepare to represent the group fairly?
2. How would you make sure credit is shared appropriately?
3. What qualities make someone a good representative rather than just a confident speaker?
Follow-up: After your presentation, a teacher praises you individually. How would you respond?
During a group task, you realise the group is heading towards an answer you believe is wrong.
1. How would you raise your concern?
2. What would you do if the group disagreed with you after you raised it?
3. Why does this situation matter for working safely in a clinical team?
Follow-up: If time ran out before the disagreement was resolved, what would you prioritise?
You are coordinating a small team for a charity fundraising event and a key supplier lets you down the day before.
1. What would your immediate priorities be?
2. How would you communicate the problem to your team?
3. What qualities help a leader stay effective under sudden pressure?
Follow-up: A team member suggests cancelling the whole event rather than adapting it. How do you respond?
You are asked to explain, in plain language and without medical jargon, what a vaccine does to the body.
1. Give your explanation as you would to a worried parent.
2. What questions might this parent reasonably ask next?
3. Why is plain language important in a doctor's communication?
Follow-up: The parent says they read online that vaccines are not properly tested. How would you continue the conversation?
You are asked to explain the difference between a virus and a bacterium to someone with no scientific background.
1. Give a clear, jargon-free explanation.
2. How would you check they had understood?
3. Why does this distinction matter for how illnesses are treated?
Follow-up: The person says, 'so antibiotics should just work on anything, right?' How would you respond?
A prospective student visiting UCL asks you why doctors sometimes seem rushed with patients.
1. How would you answer honestly but sensitively?
2. What wider pressures on the NHS might you mention?
3. How would you reassure them this would not stop you caring about patients?
Follow-up: The student asks if this makes you want to choose a different career. How would you answer?
You must summarise a complicated piece of health advice, such as managing a minor injury at home, in three short sentences.
1. Give your three-sentence summary.
2. What is the risk of oversimplifying medical advice?
3. How would you make sure the person knew when to seek further help?
Follow-up: The person says, 'so I definitely don't need to see a doctor then?' How would you clarify your answer?
A medical student on a ward placement overhears two doctors discussing a patient's case in a public corridor, using the patient's full name.
1. What is the ethical concern here?
2. What should the student do, if anything?
3. Why does confidentiality matter even in small, informal moments?
Follow-up: One of the doctors is someone the student needs a reference from. Does this change what the student should do?
An adult patient in England has been assessed as having capacity. They refuse a treatment the team believes would clearly benefit them, even though refusing may cause serious harm.
1. What ethical principle protects the patient's right to refuse?
2. How should the team check the refusal is informed and voluntary, and what should they record?
3. Why is disagreeing with medical advice not, on its own, a sign that someone lacks capacity?
Follow-up: The patient's family asks the team to pressure the patient to change their mind. How should the team respond?
The NHS has a fixed budget and must decide whether to fund a very expensive treatment that helps very few patients, or several cheaper treatments that help many.
1. What are the competing ethical principles in this decision?
2. Who should be involved in making such decisions?
3. Is it ever ethically straightforward to make this kind of choice?
Follow-up: A media campaign puts pressure on the NHS to fund the expensive treatment. How should this affect the decision?
A 16-year-old in England wants a non-urgent medical procedure. Their parents disagree.
1. What should the team consider about the young person's understanding and consent?
2. How should the family be involved, while respecting the young person's confidentiality?
3. When should the team ask for senior or legal advice?
Follow-up: How would your answer change if the procedure carried a big risk and the disagreement could not be resolved?
The parents threaten to complain about any doctor who goes ahead. How should this be handled?
A medical student makes a small error while shadowing, which has no effect on patient care, but no one else noticed.
1. Should the student mention it to anyone, and why?
2. What ethical principle is most relevant here?
3. How might this situation differ if the error had been more serious?
Follow-up: A fellow student advises them just to let it go since no harm was done. How should they respond?
A patient from a culture or belief system that the treating doctor is unfamiliar with declines a standard treatment for religious reasons.
1. What ethical principle should guide the doctor's response?
2. How should the doctor balance respect for belief with clinical responsibility?
3. What support might the doctor seek in this situation?
Follow-up: A colleague suggests simply not telling the patient about alternative treatments to avoid the disagreement. Is this acceptable?
The NHS frequently reports long waiting times for both emergency and routine care, especially in large cities like London.
1. What do you understand to be some of the causes of these waiting times?
2. What trade-offs might be involved in trying to reduce them?
3. How might this affect a newly qualified doctor's daily work?
Follow-up: A patient tells you they went private because of the wait. How would you feel hearing this as a future NHS doctor?
Health inequalities between different boroughs in a large city can lead to very different health outcomes.
1. What factors do you think drive these inequalities?
2. What role, if any, can an individual doctor play in addressing this?
3. What are the limits of what one doctor can achieve alone?
Follow-up: A patient says it is unfair that people in wealthier areas seem to get seen faster. How would you respond?
Artificial intelligence tools are increasingly used to help interpret medical scans.
1. What benefits might this bring to patients and doctors?
2. What concerns should be considered before relying on such tools?
3. How might the role of a doctor change as these tools become more common?
Follow-up: A patient asks whether a computer or a doctor made the decision about their scan result. How would you answer?
Staff retention and wellbeing within the NHS workforce are frequently discussed topics.
1. Why do you think staff wellbeing affects patient care?
2. What could be done to support new doctors in their first years of practice?
3. What personal strategies might help you look after your own wellbeing in a demanding career?
Follow-up: If you noticed a colleague showing signs of burnout, what would you do?
The following is an illustrative figure. A study finds that out of 220 patients given a new drug, 165 showed improvement, compared with 88 out of 220 patients given a placebo.
1. Calculate the percentage improvement rate in each group.
2. What does this difference suggest, and what further information would you want before drawing conclusions?
3. Why is a placebo-controlled design useful in this kind of study?
Follow-up: If the study only included 18 patients in each group, would you trust the result as much? Why or why not?
You read that a type of cell in the human body divides roughly every 24 hours under normal conditions.
1. What basic process allows one cell to become two?
2. Why might uncontrolled versions of this process be relevant to disease?
3. Why is understanding basic cell biology useful background for a future doctor, even if you will not do research?
Follow-up: How would you explain cell division to a school pupil with no biology background?
A new over-the-counter medicine is approved after passing through several stages of testing.
1. What do you understand about why medicines go through multiple testing phases before approval?
2. Why might a treatment that works well in a trial behave differently in everyday use?
3. What role might doctors play in reporting problems with medicines after approval?
Follow-up: A patient tells you they do not trust 'newly approved' medicines. How would you respond?
Science taught at school is often presented as settled fact, but scientific understanding frequently changes.
1. Can you think of an example where scientific understanding has changed over time?
2. Why is it important for a doctor to accept that medical knowledge can change?
3. How would you keep your own knowledge up to date throughout a career?
Follow-up: How would you explain to a patient that medical advice they received years ago has since changed?
The following is an illustrative figure. A clinic sees 45 patients a day. Records show 12 patients wait under 15 minutes, 20 wait between 15 and 30 minutes, and 13 wait over 30 minutes.
1. What percentage of patients wait over 30 minutes?
2. What further information would help you judge whether this waiting pattern is a problem?
3. Suggest one practical change the clinic could test to reduce long waits.
Follow-up: If the clinic could only change one thing, what would you recommend and why?
The following is an illustrative figure. Over five years, a hospital's emergency department attendances rose from 65,000 to 84,500 per year, while the number of emergency doctors rose from 35 to 38.
1. Calculate the percentage increase in attendances and in doctor numbers over the five years.
2. What might this mismatch mean for staff and patients?
3. What other data would help explain the reasons behind the rise in attendances?
Follow-up: If attendances for minor injuries made up most of the rise, what might this suggest about possible solutions?
You are given a logical puzzle: four patients are waiting to be seen, and you are told patient A must be seen before patient B, patient C must be seen before patient D, and patient B must be seen before patient D.
1. List the possible orders in which the patients could be seen.
2. Explain your reasoning process.
3. Why might the ability to reason through constraints like this be useful in medicine?
Follow-up: A fifth patient arrives who must be seen first of all. How does this change the possible orders?
The following is an illustrative figure. A screening test correctly identifies 94 out of 100 people who have a condition, but also incorrectly flags 9 out of 100 people who do not have it.
1. In a group of 1,000 people where 60 actually have the condition, roughly how many would you expect the test to flag in total?
2. What problem does this illustrate about screening tests in a low-prevalence population?
3. Why is this relevant to decisions about offering a test widely?
Follow-up: How would you explain this result to a worried person who has just tested positive?
Think of a time you changed your opinion about something significant after new information or an experience.
1. What was your original view and what changed it?
2. How did you handle the process of changing your mind?
3. Why is this kind of flexibility useful for a doctor?
Follow-up: How would you respond if changing your mind meant admitting you had previously given someone incorrect advice?
Reflect on the process of preparing your UCAS application and getting ready for this interview.
1. What has this process taught you about your own strengths?
2. What has it taught you about areas you still need to develop?
3. How will you continue this kind of reflection once you are a medical student?
Follow-up: If you were not offered a place this year, what would you take forward from this experience?
Consider a time you received disappointing results or an outcome that did not match your effort.
1. How did you respond at the time?
2. What did you learn about managing disappointment?
3. How might this learning help you cope with setbacks during medical training?
Follow-up: How would you distinguish between a setback you should push through and one that signals you need to change your approach?
UCL uses this format for medicine: MMI circuit. There are 8 stations, each about 5 minutes. Interviews may be in person or online.
Interview timing for UCL: Rolling from December 2026 to the end of March 2027. Always check the university's own admissions pages for this year's dates.
UCL assesses: NHS values, Academic curiosity, Motivation and understanding of the career, Professionalism, Problem solving, Teamwork, Communication.
No. They are 50 original MedicHut practice questions, written to match UCL's published interview format. Universities do not share their real questions, so your interview may differ.
Yes. Every question is free to practise, with no sign-up needed. You can make a free account to save your notes.
UCL medical school guide: entry requirements and interview advice
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