The candidates having been in the three terms beneath the scrutiny of two pairs of Moderators, at least in the capacity of opponent, have arrived at the dignity of Questionists by about the middle of January, six weeks before the First Tripos is published. They breakfast with the ‘Father’ of their college at 7 o'clock on the morning of Plough-Monday (ominous name to modern academical ears for the Monday after Epiphany!) se'nnight. Then (though they are not yet formally admitted ad respondendum Quaestioni) the B.A. examination begins: the Admission of Bachelors taking place on the following Friday, five weeks before ‘the First Tripos comes out’; this is the expression of the Univ. Calendar, but it does not mean the first publication of the honour list.

The examiners have already made a preliminary assortment of the examinees, into ‘classes’ of six, eight, or ten, according to the notes made by the moderators at their acts (the persons in each class being arranged alphabetically), and half-a-dozen of these classes (eight, or so, in all) have been published at Deighton's, or elsewhere, on the previous Thursday.