Brainboxes or birdbrains?
The ‘Oxford myth’ has proved a terrible and enduring force for social ill that discourages decent, bright school-leavers from applying to Oxford. The myth separates the student body of the university into two distinct demographics: you are either the next Stephen Hawking, or a class obsessed tosser • a few lucky boys and girls get to be both.
Thankfully one half of this myth has all but been exposed; it has been proven that only about 10 per cent of Oxford students can now officially be classed as ‘posh wankers’.
But what about the other part of the myth: do you have to be a bookish genius to get a place at Oxford University? It is time to expose the truth lurking somewhere behind this legend, and so, armed with piles of general knowledge questionnaires, an exhilarating feeling of (entirely unfounded) intellectual superiority and, at times, a peculiar desire to use Anne Robinson style one-liners, we set out to test the intellectual mettle of our fellow students.
The official Oxford University website outlines what the university is looking for from a potential student. It states that it grades nervous interviewees in terms of the ‘how well they listen to questions and how sensibly they answer them’ and looks for a demonstration of knowledge outside of the school syllabus.
So, did our tutors succeed in finding what they were looking for? And even if they did, do all of these qualities fade into oblivion when pupils are faced with twice-weekly essay crises, and mere academic survival • not intellectual stimulation • becomes the main focus for most students? At first glance, the outlook is bleak. Two thirds of the 110 students surveyed comfortably cushioned in the Oxford bubble of weighty textbooks and endless coffee shops, do not know where they are.
Only 34 per cent of students were able to place Oxford, Cambridge and Reading correctly on a map of the UK. Some were more accurate than others, but a special mention must surely go the student who put Reading in Wales and Cambridge in Scotland. In fact, Geographers suddenly have reason to feel vindicated.
After centuries of being plagued by fellow students for their colour-by-numbers style degree, it seems that even the Arts students are unable to grapple with the basics of this highly complex subject. Only one quarter knew that Albany was the capital of New York State and a common response to the question, ‘What is the capital of Australia?’ was the highly constructive statement ‘It’s not Sydney’.
For a slightly more confused student, allow me at least to add the following qualification: it’s also not Calcutta. It seems that the via negativa is not going to lead us to knowledge of basic geography anytime soon. Who’d have thought it? Perhaps this total lack of general knowledge is something endemic to the British education system; we spend most of our teenage lives desperately cramming for exams and specialise in a few subjects far earlier than in most countries.
In particular, with respect to Geography, are we not as keen on informing ourselves on other parts of the world now that Britannia no longer rules a third of it? Hats off to the Geographers once more: think how many more colouring pencils are needed now that we cannot colour a third of the globe red. Unfortunately though, our ignorance extended beyond a slightly patchy knowledge of Geography.
It is no wonder that so many students occasionally experience the sudden, sickening feeling they don’t really know anything in spite of doing a degree at Oxford. While we train ourselves to be able to write an essay on the meaning of life/the elimination of world poverty/medieval theological vernacular in 40 minutes, we entirely forget what we learnt in those late hours revising before our GCSE’s.
Only 30 per cent of students got the question on mitosis correct, although it was taken from a GCSE biology revision guide. As for the times tables, one third got the answer wrong and one befuddled student thought 7 times 8 was 92.
Are we going to leave Oxford with a spectacularly detailed knowledge of our subject of choice and a complete inability to count? Or is this lack of concern for general knowledge actually a peculiar form of arrogance? When we were at school, the way to show off one’s superior intellect and astronomical IQ, would be to sit at the back of the class and nonchalantly raise one’s hand to correct a less intelligent class mate.
For the more ostentatious types, the way to retain the position of class genius is to surround oneself with a troupe of slightly dim-witted sidekicks, and exploit any opportunity to undermine the teachers’ authority with smart-aleck comments, safe in the knowledge that your posse of lesser beings would cackle at all your jokes, even if they don‘t understand them. But we are at Oxford now, and these sort of tricks don’t work.
Thus the only way to maintain an air of a virtuoso is to make it obvious that one is so submersed in the loftier aspects of human life, that matters such as one‘s geographical position are trifling and an unwanted distraction. Other problems are perhaps more specific to Oxford, given that we are allegedly the most abstemious university in England.
Is it mere coincidence that only 28 per cent of students realised that acmegenesis means orgasm? The majority of those who got it wrong believe acmegenesis to be a blood disorder. Perhaps we have inadvertently revealed the reason for Oxford’s general chastity? Are a large proportion of students fleeing from their girlfriend/boyfriend’s offer of acmegenesis for fear of contracting a terrible, debilitating disease? We can only speculate.
And perhaps wonder whether, if this really is the case, young lovers are not sensible for fleeing the advances of anyone who uses the word ‘acmegenesis’. Our questionnaire revealed another troubling problem.
Considering the great value that the enlightened writers of the Oxford applications website place on the ability to ‘think independently’, how is that, when asked to name any vegetable, from artichoke to zucchini, two thirds of students responded with ‘carrot’? What has cemented this measly, ugly vegetable as the archetypal (or worse still, only) vegetable in the minds of bright young Oxford students? Is it perhaps a sombre reminder of the fact that we are the pre-Jamie Oliver’s school inner generation, fed on food little more wholesome than turkey twizzlers for most of our formative years? Is it our entrapment in an industrialised world so cut off from our natural roots that has caused an unnerving proportion of Oxford students to believe the sea to be populated by a fish called a ‘tripe’? Our first concern, which was the flagrant lack of diversity in the vegetable know-how department, pales into insignificance when faced with the fact that three students found that ‘toto’ was the only vegetable they could think of, whilst another two answered with ‘strawberry’. Of course, a long, hard day in the library can leave a poor student a little mentally frazzled and flustered; perhaps feeling the pressure of the questionnaire these poor victims of severe post-Bod syndrome felt the need to blurt out the first organic life form that sprung to mind.
But be warned, the fount of knowledge that is the aforementioned Oxford website, recommends to applicants of a particularly nervous disposition that ‘if you are asked a factual question about which you know nothing or haven’t considered before, don’t panic. You could say honestly ‘we haven’t covered that topic yet’ or ‘I haven’t read much about that’.
However, in many subjects the questions are designed to test your ability to apply logic and common sense to an idea you may never have encountered before.’ This is not the same thing as an inability to keep one’s mouth shut when one knows nothing.
I would particularly recommend this advice to the anonymous student who believed that Mozart was tragically shot dead on the 28th June, 1914, an event that was to change the world of music forever, or the fine example of original thinking from someone in the upper echelons of the union, who thought it Bismark was shot on this fateful June day.
Not to forget the numerous individuals who believed that blood cells produce ‘crusading haemoglobin’, ‘enema’ or ‘amphetamines’ to fight disease.
For those who are still puzzled as to why these biological terms are wrong, let me assure you that a crusading haemoglobin translates in to layman/ Oxford student terms as ‘an oxygen supporting substance in the blood fighting a holy war, or exerting a lot of effort’, an enema is the ‘insertion of liquid into the rectum’ and ‘ amphet-amine’ is speed. It’s not all doom and gloom on the academic front.
Are we the future Stephen Hawkings or just geeks with no common sense?
A whopping 90% per cent of students realised that Rome was the city that wasn’t built in a day. This almost made up for the fact that one respondent puzzlingly said that Milton Keynes wasn’t built in a day • he’s right of course, but as a phrase it lacks pizzazz. Some students showed an amazing amount of confidence in their answers: one, on being asked the aforementioned question, triumphantly proclaimed, “Well it definitely wasn’t Rome!”.
Others showed an amazing obsession with spotting trick questions, like the particularly suspicious brightspark who, on being asked to name a vegetable, exclaimed “I can see what you’ re doing here, you wanted me to say tomato didn’t you?” in such a smug, self-satisfied way that I felt I couldn’t possibly tell him that this wasn’t the case.
Perhaps the question that showed Oxford students in the most favourable, yet vulnerable light, was the query “when is a door, not a door?” As perfect testimony to the fact that successful applicants spend too much of their childhood swotting rather than reading bumper joke books, this left many a self-important PPE students grappling with the implications of the representative theory of perception and was known to silence one particular chatterbox for a long, embarrassing five minutes before he responded, as coolly as possible “When is it, indeed?” Incidentally, only one fifth of the students we asked wanted to get rid of subfusc. Perhaps this is a sign of an understanding that if we cannot actually separate ourselves from the majority of the population due to our wider knowledge of the state of the world, we should at least divert attention from this fact by surrounding our examinations and most aspects of student life with huge amounts of pomp and pretension.
It might even make us more likely to be believed when we tumble out of Oxford begging, “Give me a job, I’m clever.” It seems that those who still try to perpetuate the belief that Oxford is an institution for those of superior intellect have little to stand on. Sadly it also looks like the death of the computer scientists’ mating call: “I’m not just a geek, I have common sense too!” To those who would seek yo promulgate either view these results may prove a little troubling.
However, perhaps it would be best if we made a joint pact to keep this myth alive and exacted it as the price for manic work loads and three years of being virtually chained to the Bod. Just act natural, and r remember : we are intelligent, r e a - sonable, and perceptive people. Except when it comes to map reading.
9th Feb 2006