CURIOUS ANSWERS.

Auckland Star, Volume II, Issue 315, 12 January 1871, Page 2

CURIOUS ANSWERS.

The Pall Mall Gazette recently called attention to some very ludicrous blunders made at Cambridge middle-class examination in the answers to the set questions of English History. Equally absurd errors might be adduced from the replies of university undergraduates in their various college examinations. Most people have an idea of Italy being represented by chartographei'3 in the form of a boot; yet I remember a university-man who mapped it out as a square. Another being required to draw a map of Judea, put a big dot for Jerusalem, and a similar one marked, "Here the-man fell among the thieves," and was satisfied with that exposition. "An island in the yEgean Sea," is a stoker answer to any question, as to the situation of the place not known " shots" are made ; and I remember an unfortunate man asserting that" clan" was au adject ive.accusative ease, feminine; and that "etsi'^was a verb, preter-perfect teuse from " etiD." Two instances are given by Mr. Bristed in his " Five j ears in an English University," where " Ca3sar cativos sub corona vendidit" was translated " Ctesar sold the captives for less than five shillings;" and where "Esi enim fiuitimus oratori poeta ; numeris adstrictior paullo verboruni autem licentia liberior," was translated, "for a poet lived next door to the orator, too licentious in his language, but more circumspect than numbers." The jocosely clever answers are, however, somewhat hazardous ; as the Cambridge man found when he was asked by Mr. Payne, his examiner, to define happiness, and replied, "An exemption from Payne." And I knew another man who came to trouble by answering the question " What did St. Paul do at Troas and Rhegium ?" "He left his cloak at Troas and fetched a compass to Rheeium." The answers to questions in Divinity papers would cover a wide field of absurdity ; but so many of them (unconsciously) border on the profane, that they can ouly be briefly referred to here. All that one man could say of David was, that he was "a person very fond of music;" while another could tell nothing more of the most remarkable circumstance in the office of the High Priest, than that "he only washed his face once a year." Another man thought that St. Paul was " a teacher, brought up at the Ephesians." There are many recorded answers to the question as to the connection between the Old and New Testaments: one was " Prideaux's connection ;" another - was, " When Peter cut off Malachi's car." The following is probably an ingenious composition. Question. What animal in Scripture is recorded to have spoken ? Answer. The whale. Q. To whom did the whale speak ? A. To Moses in the bulrushes. Q. What did the whale say ? A. Thou art the man. Q. What did Moses reply ? A. Almost thou persuadest me to be a Christian. Q. What was the effect on the whale ? A. He rushed violently down a steep place into the pea and perished in the waters. Here is a verse in which two stupid answers are embalmed:

A small snob of Baliol had an idea, That Joseph was loved by his Arimathea ; And, coining a word in the fashion Grote, Said that Herod held office as Scholekobrote.