The ancient ‘examination’ for the BA degree. After students had (in some way unknown) demonstrated their competence, and had attended the necessary lectures, they were ‘admitted to the question’ (an examination by disputation), and paid their first university fee (12 d., as communa). They were now commencing bachelors or questionists and were then obliged to determine within two years. Admission to determine was preceded by another examination lasting over four days in the week before Shrove Sunday, an examination in which all regent masters could take part. The first act of determination was a ceremonial one, in which a selected senior bachelor (the ‘Mr Tripos’ of later years) took part. After that the determiners took their place in the schools on every legible day for four weeks, each attended by a sophista and equipped with three questions in logic or philosophy which the two of them argued against all comers. This continued until the Thursday after the fourth Sunday in Lent, when another ceremony, similar to first, brought the proceedings to a close. The first steps towards the replacement of this system by something closer to the modern Tripos system came in about 1725 when the Moderators began the practice of summoning those candidates about whose position in the Ordo Senioritatis there was any doubt, and submitting them to a further test. This test evolved into the Senate House examination which was imposed on all candidates and which, in 1750 was officially recognised by the University.
