JMSS Interview Guide

Introduction: (GREETINGS)

● When someone greets you at the interview do not say I am good.

● Modelled example: Thanks for asking, I am feeling really excited for this interview and I
hope to come to this school as well.
● By doing this the interviewer will understand that you are a really confident person.

Personal Qualities:

● Please describe yourself?

Incorporate values of Jmss into ur personal qualities

Middle:

When are your strengths and weakness?

● First state about the particular thing you are good at it, give reasons why and then say
how you can improve on that thing. (IMPROVEMENTS IS BIG PART)

Examples: I think i am good at it but I am trying to get better at it

I think i am bad at this but i am doing this to try get better at it

What is your favourite Movie?

Inception and they want to know why?

How you see yourself in 5years time?

● Don’t only mention career also mention extracurricular activities

● Such as in 5 years I wanna see myself improve in my violin skills and also be able to do
grade 5 music.
Group Interview:

● What skills do you have?

Leadership Skills:

○ Communicating well with the peers

■ Cannot be having a fussy and bossy manner . You need to have the
ability to be able to communicate in an understanding manner to your
peers.
● -Give analogy that nobody will feel like listening to them if you threaten them.

○ Adaptability (Going accord with the situation)

● -If something goes unpredicted or not expectant.

-ie: if my partner doesn’t come to the school presentation expo, I have the skill to like
make a function-able plan such as for this case to like maybe take initiative to do their
role as well or modifying the presentation.

○ Flexible to change

○ Need to be flexible with whatever changes happens and make a mindset that
everything is fine.

○ Open to peers

○ Having your own idea isn’t the best way to go with as somebody else’s idea
might be better or might be an add on to your idea. Even if it isn’t it is important to
be inclusive with others and not exclusive.

● Completing Tasks:

○ Punctual (Doing something to the agreed time) ie: coming to the match at 8:30 as
agreed by the match coordinators.
○ Organised (Making schedules. Use google calendar a lot)
● Why do you want to come to this school?

○ Don’t talk about competition in the school as their school aims to be more
inclusive with their students.

○ Community

● As said by my family friends they talked really highly about the community saying that
there are students with interest in different parts of science and the fact that the people
there take up qualities of a good leader and in general is a passionate community about
science. That is something I really admire about one of the feature of this school.

○ Facilities
● Great science equipments and laboratories across the school building.

○ Year 10 Science Electives

● Science is a topic with many parts like environment, human health, chemistry and more.
However, with electives you can really dive in to different parts of science and explore
these things. According to the website that I went through there was electives like
pharmaceutical science(drug cases is quite fun) and terraforming mars.

○ Activities / events
● Say that there are many events at JMSS they run and that I am quite interested in:

○ Harmony day

○ Battle of the bands

○ lip sync battles details here…

● Summary:

○ I want to come to the school due to the school and it’s students passion for
science
■ Talk about science electives
 ■ Say how this school can help me expand upon my science project upon
pollen as this school has many science equipment and supportive
teachers /community that can help me for this project.
○ Also because it has many diverse opportunities (extracurricular activities)
○ Community at this school is very inclusive which I really support

● What are you going to take if you were a

student at JMSS?
Things that I will take from this school is that I will join the many clubs JMSS has to offer
to the students as I find that is a way to become more social with the many students at
the school.

Another thing I will take if I was a student at JMSS is that they have a range of sci

● What do you want to be when you grow up?

○ I am passionate through learning about pharmaceutical science and stem

○ Want to specialise in immunology because it is crucial aspect of our health that
has been affecting our lives in many ways. ie: Covid pandemic
○ I have been struggling with allergies and has affected my life in many ways. ie:
can’t go outside to the oval just like the rest of the people. (Certain limitations)
○ Therefore, I want to make some drugs and medications to stopping these
allergies.
● They might ask what type of drug will it be.

Study about allergies and how it happens because they might quiz you on this in the
JMSS test

About allergies: These harmful substances such as pollen which comes in the spring
season might go into your nasal cavity making the immune system to over react to this
substance by producing antibodies. So this fights this pollen and this is why we sneez.
We sneeze to release this substance out of the body.
● How is JMSS going to help you to achieve your
dream goal?
○ DONT SAY DOCTOR OR ENGINEER (U WILL SOUND LIKE A NERD SAY
SOMETHING FANCY LIKE AN IMMUNOLOGIST, OR PHARMACIST
SOMETHING LIKE THAT)

○ As mentioned I want to become a immunologist that makes medications

○ With this, JMSS has certain electives like pharmaceutical science which focuses
on organic chemistry which will help and give me some background information
towards this goal I am aiming for.
○ With a passionate and a science community, they can also help me learn from
their questions and answers during class.

● Why do you think JMSS is the perfect school

for you?
JMSS is the perfect school for me because they provide:

○ Academics: They are the only specialist school and they have a high school
ranking based on the great teachers they have there. So by going to this school it
will be perfect in assisting me to getting a great ATAR .
○ Science: This is the only school focusing upon the field of science, and I am
interested in this part of subject making it a great school for me to endeavour my
knowledge through this field and other.
○ Community: The school has a great open and inclusive community as well as the
principals and teachers according to my family friends that had came here.
● (They might ask you to tell or specify their name of a student that goes to this school)

● What is your proudest achievement in

the last 3 years?
○ Making it to the Rep cricket team
● Who do you most look up to and why?
Nelson Mandela

○ Determination and hope

○ There were people that stopped him from reaching his goals
○ He even went to prison
○ He read politics books in prison and noted down notes
○ after he got released he still tried to defend the nation and then became the south
african president

● What is the biggest ‘life lesson’ you have

learnt and how did you learn it?

○ The biggest life lesson that I have learnt is when I used to be that student that
was in huge reliance of my parents to tell me what homework I needed to
complete and what extracurricular activities I have today.
○ Like this obviously caused a huge burden for them.
○ But then one day, my mum who was the one who usually tells me what to do had
gone to the hospital as she had some heart problem so on that 2 weeks of time I
had to rely on myself.
○ Consequently on that same day, I had an english exam which was required for
the students to note down quotes from the book beforehand.
○ As a cause of this I hadnt done it so I was pretty much had no clue on what to
write about for the examn.
○ After receiving a concerning comment from my teacher I didn’t want to tell my
mum as she obviously just had surgery so I kept this mind and from this day i
think due to this moment I was able to be at least somewhat organised. So ye i
think i really progressed.

● If you could invite 4 people from any time period

to a dinner, who would you invite and why?
 ○ don’t be boring with these. E.g. don’t pick Albert Einstein or Isaac Newton etc. to
bring to you dinner or as your role models. I chose Beethoven, Galileo, Cleopatra
and someone from 4000 CE but still linked it all in to my life ambitions and what I
was interested in.
■ i WILL probably invite my grandma and grandpa as they had died before I
was even born. So i guess chatting with them and understanding how
their life was.

● How can machine learning and AI be used to improve

Australian lives.

● What does CSIRO STAND FOR?

Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation

● How does pollution affect the Marine System

● How the temperature affect the growth of plants?

● If I told you to choose two words science and

scientist, choose one and elaborate more upon that.

● What is some newest science invention?

● What are you interest in science

● How do you see yourself in 20 years of time

● Three words to describe myself:

○ Outgoing
○ Organised/punctual
○ Adventurous/ adaptive
● If I made you the science minister what are the two things you will do for the nation?
 ○ Invest for climate change projects
○ Invest for school based science programs.

Tips:

● They do ask for yr 8 semester 2 and yr 9 semester 1 reports so try to make sure they’re
as good as possible.
● Try to do some sort of leadership, sport and music as they want well rounded people and
it’ll be leaving a huge section out if you can’t.
● Bring in interesting certificates - first place at a sport, a language award etc.
● I didn’t have any science awards... at all so instead I wrote about how I’d rather
participate in experiences rather than competitions to actually learn more (lectures,
synchrotron, open days etc.)
● The most useful piece of advice I could give you is be unique, think through your
answers before answering and say something you think only you would be able to say.
E.g. I didn’t actually pick a proudest achievement, I just talked about how I was proud of
participating in so many opportunities to make the most of my life.
● Be friendly - say hello and smile, it goes a long way.
● The interviews are where the competition gets tough (only 200 of 500 people get in) so
make sure you communicate how enthusiastic and passionate you are through your
answers as they won’t directly ask.

EDU-KINGDOM COLLEGE TIPS:

1. Understanding the purpose of the interview

They want to know:

● What personality does the student display? They don’t want an academic blob!
● How well is the student able to communicate
● Does the student display attributes which would make him/her an outstanding example
to the others academic achievement?
● Will this student help to create the positive social climate of the school? Is he likely to get
on well with other students and teachers?
● Will the student’s behaviour reflect well on the school’s motto and principle?
1. Questions you are likely to be asked

Questions about your current schooling?

● What school do you currently attend?

Glen Waverley Secondary College
● What school uniform or badge are you wearing? What does
that motto mean?

Sports Captain Badge (Organised swiming carnival event )

● What do you like best about your school?

Community:

○ Teachers are very open to people’s ideas and are very supportive to the
students.
○ Students are inclusive and when doing group tasks they show quite a great
amount of respect to their peers.
● Clubs

○ There are many clubs such as astronomy, STEM which I have actively
participated in, tournament of minds, and etc.
● There are many clubs that i am interested such as

● What are the things about your school which you do

not like?
There isn’t much but the only thing that is the problem is that during languages lesson I
felt the lessons were quite boring as it was just doing flashcards and writing down the
letters down on the paper many times. I feel that the learning plan needed a bit of
improvement as other students also felt this dullness.

● Do you feel comfortable to approach your teachers

about things you don’t understand?
○ Yes, because if I drag something I don’t know about it will always appear some
where in your life and in the tests so it is better to clear your doubts with the
teachers even though it might seem like a dumb question.
● What do you think makes a good teacher?
○ Supportive with peers
○ A teacher that is quite curious. Instead of following the teaching lesson plan, like
while we are learning something, a curious teacher will also teach other things
 that are related to the point. IE: like while studying about a frog, a curious teacher
may also show a video of how parts of the frog looks like for extra knowledge.
○ Open minded teacher that is open to anyone’s answers and interpretations.
○ Show interest in student’s ideas
● Think carefully about your class. Is there any bullying?
Describe this bullying.

No

● What is your best subject? What are your favourite

subjects
Biology is my favourite subject as it uncovers how animals and humans appear. Like the
remarkable thing about the human body is that it is like a miracle. For every part of the
body there is a incredible reason for it. For instance, when we have too much sugar
there is insulin that is used to regulate it.

My favourite subjects are probably phycology because you understand how your own
brain works as well as your feelings. The fascinating part is that everything you do in life
is based on how you feel. For instance, you depend on your motivating emotion to make
you finish your homework.

● What are you weakest at in school? What have you done

about it?
○ Languages (Chinese) new subject for me and it was interesting.
○ So what I did was, for every class the teacher had given flashcards before every
class on compass so i read them before each class meaning that I can be
prepared for the upcoming class.
● What second language are you currently studying? Would you wish to continue studying
that language here

○ Tamil and yes.

● What’s your experience with computers?

● Have you participated in a gifted and talented program?

● Do you think you are organised when you are doing your homework? How much time do
you spend on homework

● How do you manage your time?

Questions relating to JMSS

● What do you know about this school? How did you find out about the information?
● Why do you want to come to JMSS?
● How do you think your life will change if you come to this school?

One to one interview:

● Pick a word and explain what you think of when hearing that word between
science/scientist and invention/discovery?

● If you could be prime minister and could do one thing in

science/energy/technology/environment what would you do and what would you aim to
achieve in 4 years?

● Why is science important?

● What is your proudest achievement?

● What future studies/careers are you considering?

○ I wish to do researcher to boost immunity to allergies.

○ Melbourne the allergy capital of the world.
○ I wish to do research/interests include the primary prevention of allergic and
optimising health.
○ Allergies cannot be cured but symptoms can be controlled
● How have you dealt with remote learning? (You probably won’t get this one)

● How do you balance study and other commitments? Strategies.

● Any questions? ASK AS MUCH AS YOU POSSIBLY CAN ABOUT ABSOLUTELY

EVERYTHING.

● Favourite subjects and why?

● What extra curricular activities do you participate?

● Why does Australia need more scientists?

● What should the Australian government do to support scientists in this country?

● Why do you think your a great group team member ?

 ● Who is your favourite author and why?

● What makes a good role model and who is a role model for you?

● What would you do if your a science minister in Melbourne?

● What are your hobbies?

Special Hobby: Self improvement

● What do you want to be when you grow up?

I have been interested in stem and this is a important pathway in life to take. Talk about
allergies and pharmaceutical science.

Task for interview :They give you and seven other people a unique object that most people don’t
know about, As a group you need to discuss about what it could be.

Monash Uni News

● Monash Researches Find Key to blocking Replication of Covid Virus

Monash researchers find key to blocking replication of COVID virus

○ Antiviral Drug (inhale)

○ It blocks the replication of the Sars- coV-2
○ It prevents the substrate to bind to the activation site