HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

Responsions was the first of the three examinations formerly required for acceptance for an academic degree at the
University of Oxford , mottoeng = The Lord is my light , established = , endowment = £6.1 billion (including colleges) (2019) , budget = £2.145 billion (2019–20) , chancellor ...
. It was nicknamed Little Go or Smalls and was normally taken by students prior to or shortly after
matriculation Matriculation is the formal process of entering a university, or of becoming eligible to enter by fulfilling certain academic requirements such as a matriculation examination. Australia In Australia, the term "matriculation" is seldom used now ...
, on the basis that without standardised qualifications from school examinations, the University had to verify for itself the quality of the students that
colleges A college (Latin: ''collegium'') is an educational institution or a constituent part of one. A college may be a degree-awarding tertiary educational institution, a part of a collegiate or federal university, an institution offerin ...
were accepting. The examination consisted of comparatively simple questions on
Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...
,
Ancient Greek Ancient Greek includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek (), Dark Ages (), the Archaic peri ...
, and mathematics. It was abolished in 1960.
John Henry Newman John Henry Newman (21 February 1801 – 11 August 1890) was an English theologian, academic, intellectual, philosopher, polymath, historian, writer, scholar and poet, first as an Anglican ministry, Anglican priest and later as a Catholi ...
wrote to his father on 29 May 1818: "I go up for my Little tomorrow", and records in his journal for the following day that he had 'passed Responsions'.
P. G. Wodehouse Sir Pelham Grenville Wodehouse, ( ; 15 October 188114 February 1975) was an English author and one of the most widely read humorists of the 20th century. His creations include the feather-brained Bertie Wooster and his sagacious valet, Jeeve ...
in The Inimitable Jeeves wrote: "Well, they're down there, too, reading for some exam or other with the vicar. I used to read with him myself at one time. He's known far and wide as a pretty hot coach for those of fairly feeble intellect. Well, when I tell you he got me through Smalls, you'll gather that he's a bit of a hummer. I call this most extraordinary." Also referencing "Smalls" and the Latin Exam: The Classical Weekly Vol. 22, No. 8 (Dec. 3, 1928), pp. 58–60 (3 pages) https://www.jstor.org/stable/4389223 ''Responsions'' derives from Anglo-French ''responsion'' from Latin ''responsio'' "a reply or an answer", from the Latin verb ''respondeo'', to answer, or give a response.


Similar examinations


University of Cambridge

The equivalent at
Cambridge Cambridge ( ) is a university city and the county town in Cambridgeshire, England. It is located on the River Cam approximately north of London. As of the 2021 United Kingdom census, the population of Cambridge was 145,700. Cambridge bec ...
to Responsions at Oxford was the Previous Examination, so called because it was taken a year previous to graduation; it was often called the 'Little Go'. Says one writer of the Cambridge 'Little Go': :"Latin Responsions was a requirement for entry, School Certificate and the GCE Latin allowing exemption. However, in the early 1950s several bright students had to go to Cambridge to take it because the then Labour Government decreed that those under 16 could only take GCE as a non-candidate and so deprived them of the certificate. It presumably died when the Latin requirement was dropped in the 1960s."
Brewer Brewing is the production of beer by steeping a starch source (commonly cereal grains, the most popular of which is barley) in water and fermenting the resulting sweet liquid with yeast. It may be done in a brewery by a commercial brewer, ...
(1894) defines Little Go as: "The examination held in the Cambridge University in the second year of residence. Called also "the previous examination", because it precedes by a year the examination for a degree. In Oxford the corresponding examination is called The Smalls." However the 1996 edition of Brewer gives: "A nickname for the former Previous (Entrance) Examination for undergraduates at Cambridge, unless excused on account of successes at other examinations. It ceased to operate after 1961, owing to new regulations." Other sources also suggest that at some point the Little-Go came to refer to the entrance examination.
Karl Pearson Karl Pearson (; born Carl Pearson; 27 March 1857 – 27 April 1936) was an English mathematician and biostatistician. He has been credited with establishing the discipline of mathematical statistics. He founded the world's first university st ...
's obituary of
Raphael Weldon Walter Frank Raphael Weldon Fellow of the Royal Society, FRS (15 March 1860 – 13 April 1906), was an English evolutionary biologist and a founder of biometry. He was the joint founding editor of ''Biometrika'', with Francis Galton and Karl Pea ...
(p. 8) refers to Weldon "preparing (c. 1877) for Little-Go and the
London Preliminary Scientific London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a major se ...
. For the classical part of the former he seems to have worked by himself." Pearson also refers to 'Little-Go' in Cambridge in 1842 in his biography of
Francis Galton Sir Francis Galton, FRS FRAI (; 16 February 1822 – 17 January 1911), was an English Victorian era polymath: a statistician, sociologist, psychologist, anthropologist, tropical explorer, geographer, inventor, meteorologist, proto- ...
. Taking the examination was called 'having a little go' and the counterpart of taking Part II examinations (final year) was 'having a great go'. Both are not now used.


University of Dublin

The Final Freshman examination at the
University of Dublin The University of Dublin ( ga, Ollscoil Átha Cliath), corporately designated the Chancellor, Doctors and Masters of the University of Dublin, is a university located in Dublin, Ireland. It is the degree-awarding body for Trinity College Dubl ...
was also termed 'Little-go', which all students whether Honours or Pass had to pass till 1959 if they were to rise to Sophister standing. The ordinary undergraduate course in Arts itself (along with the Little Go examination) was abolished in 1979.https://www.tcd.ie/about/content/pdf/history_college.pd


References


Bibliography


Merriam Responsions
Websters Dictionary {{Portal bar, Education, England, border=yes Terminology of the University of Oxford University of Oxford examinations