Responsions

Responsions

Responsions was previously a name describing the first of the three examinations once required for an academic degree at the University of Oxford. It was nicknamed the Little Go and was generally taken by students prior to or shortly after matriculation. The examination consisted of comparatively simple questions on Latin, Ancient Greek and mathematics.

The "Little-Go" was also used at Cambridge: Karl Pearson's obituary of Raphael Weldon (p.8) refers to Weldon "preparing (c. 1877 for Little-Go and the London Preliminary Scientific. 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. [http://galton.org/cgi-bin/searchImages/search/pearson/vol1/pages/vol1_0240.htm]

The name derives from Anglo-French "responsion", Medieval Latin "responsion", and from Latin "responsio", to answer, or give a response. In this sense it was sometimes used to describe the giving of a payment or the sung response in a choir.

References

* [http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/responsions Merriam Responsions] Websters Dictionary


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