Do I need to sit an entrance test for Psychological and Behavioural Sciences at Cambridge?
The admissions process for those wishing to study PBS at Cambridge has changed for 2025/6 entry. Candidates will no longer required to sit the PBSAA (Psychological and Behavioural Sciences Admissions Assessment) which is no longer in use.
Some Cambridge Colleges will however require you to sit what is called an at-college assessment. This means that you will be required to sit some sort of written test on the day of your interview – if you are called. Students will not need to register in advance and details are provided with interview information.
The colleges that ask you to take an assessment for the PBS are:
- Gonville & Caius
- Homerton
- Newnham
- Selwyn
- St Edmund’s
What do the Psychological and Behavioural Sciences assessments look like?
Individual Colleges have quite distinct approaches to this subject: some are more ‘liberal’ and do not, for example, require you to have A Levels in any particular subject; others may be more specific in their entrance requirements (usually requiring Maths or Biology). This is reflected in the quite different assessment parameters, which are set out by individual college below.
Gonville & Caius College
This short test is 1 hour long and (the college suggests) requires no preparation: it explicitly does not require any knowledge of A-level Psychology or of Maths beyond GCSE.
The main part of the test involves writing a short summary of a passage of ‘interesting- - read ‘challenging’ – prose. The example passage provided by the College here is a knotty four-page extract from a 1950 essay by Michael Oakeshott, a former student and Fellow of Gonville and Caius College.
Your work in the tests allows tutors to assess how candidates might perform in the Cambridge course - a course dominated by reading research papers and weekly essays, presented to your supervisor. The test also includes questions that examine your general thinking skills.
Homerton College
Homerton advise that candidates invited for interview will be sent full details about the assessment in advance of the day.
This 60-minute assessment contains two distinct sections. In the first, you will be asked to complete one of the following tasks:
- to critically assess an experimental design,
- to design an experiment and justify your strategy, or
- to interpret data to produce a line of argument
In section two you will have to examine a specific psychological topic, using broad prior knowledge of the field, and drawing on examples from previous study. The College insist that here there is no right or wrong answer: they look for direct answers to questions and the building of cohesive arguments.
It is advised that students should spend 20-25 minutes on section one, and 35-40 minutes section two.
Newnham College
Candidates applying to study PBS at Newnham College in 2025 (or deferred to 2026) will be required to take a written assessment. You will write an essay following one of a choice of prompts related to key questions in Psychology. Again, no specific or previous knowledge is expected - but candidates should draw on knowledge from school studies and wider reading.
Some example essay questions for the PBS Admissions Assessment at Newnham:
- ‘Does memory offer a more perfect world than the universe?’
- ‘Antisocial behaviour runs in families – Discuss.’
Selwyn and St Edmund’s College
Selwyn College ask PBS candidates to sit a one-hour written assessment on the day of their interview. This involves questions in two sections. Section 1 is an essay-type question (from a choice of prompts); section 2 involves short answer questions (again from a choice). The aim of the assessment is to test data quantitative and analytical skills.
What are colleges looking for?
Much like with interviews, colleges are looking for students who can think clearly about complex problems, with the ability to weigh up different possible explanations and account for possible counter-arguments. They should be able to formulate a coherent argument based on their critical interpretations of what they read and hear, and communicate their ideas effectively. Ultimately colleges use the entrance tests to determine which students are most interested and engaged with the subject, and who would be the best fit for the rigour and focus of the PBS course.
How difficult are the PBS entrance tests?
The PBS entrance tests are designed to require no specific previous knowledge. Therefore, they test implicit reasoning skills that any student would have been able to develop during school and through their own independent learning. In that sense, anyone has a chance of doing well.
However, that does not mean that PBS assessments are easy, or that it is easy to get an offer. In 2022, there were 939 applicants to study PBS at Cambridge, of which 102 were offered a place to study. This means that just over 10% of applicants were given an offer last year.
That said, there are definitely ways of improving your chances of being offered a place to study PBS. These will be covered in the section below.
What are the best way to prepare for PBS entrance tests?
For shorter answer questions, there are a number of ways students can prepare. Firstly, students should read as many scientific articles as possible, in order to familiarise themselves with their style, format, and terminology. This will also help students improve their knowledge of specific areas of the course, even though this is not explicitly required.
Students that have not studied psychology before might find this a daunting task at first. However, they can start by descriptions of articles written by creditable sources such as the British Psychological Society, who publish a regular research digest on their website.
When reading articles, students should pay particular attention to the design of the experiment, the chosen methodology, and the data gathered. It is important to engage critically with the experimental design and ask questions about the choices made by the researchers.
For example: why did the researchers choose this design? Is this the most appropriate choice given the subject of the experiment? Are there any better alternatives? Are there any flaws in this experiment? How could these be improved if the experiment was to be run again? Is there any potential for bias? Are the variables well-defined? Can you identify the independent and dependent variables? Are there any confounding variables? Are the findings significant?
Answering these questions will improve a candidate’s critical and analytical skills, which are the basis of a strong performance in this assessment. Often, there is no right or wrong answer, and the candidate is being assessed on how well they build a cohesive argument.
For essay questions, students can use practice questions from section 2 of the Thinking Skills Assessment, because the questions are very similar. They can also get additional practice by writing timed essays on randomly chosen quotations from literature or history, although they should in some way be relevant to content covered in the PBS course.
Tutors for the PBS entrance tests
Keystone works with a number of tutors who specialise in supporting with students with PBS admissions as well as their Oxbridge applications. Contact us to find out more.