Responsions was 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 idea being that without standardised qualifications from school examinations, the University had to verify for itself the quality of the students that colleges were accepting. The examination consisted of comparatively simple questions on Latin, Ancient Greek, and mathematics. It was abolished in 1960.[1] John Henry Newman wrote to his father on 29th May 1818: "I go up for my Little tomorrow", and records in his journal for the following day that he had 'passed Responsions'.[2]
The equivalent at Cambridge was the Previous Examination, so called because it was given a year previous to graduation, and often called the 'Little Go'. Says one writer of the Cambridge 'Little Go':
'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.[3]
It consisted of elementary examinations in Latin, Ancient Greek, Divinity and Mathematics and was abolished in 1960. 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.[4]
Responsions derives from Anglo-French responsion, Medieval Latin responsion, and from Latin responsio, to answer, or give a response. In this sense it sometimes described the giving of a payment, or the sung response in a choir.
This article incorporates text from the public domain 1907 edition of The Nuttall Encyclopædia.