Objective: To determine whether the marks in the third year Objective Structured Clinical Examination were affected by the collusion reported by the students themselves on an electronic discussion board.Design: A review of the student discussion, examiners’ feedback and a comparison of the marks obtained on the 2 days of the OSCE.Participants: 255 third year medical students.Setting: An OSCE consisting of 15 stations, administered on three sites over 2 days at a UK medical school.Results: 40 students contributed to the discussion on (...) the electronic discussion board. The main points raised were perceived inequity between students who did, or did not, have prior knowledge of the station content, and the lack of honesty and professionalism of their peers. Most contributors claimed to have received, or knew of others receiving, prior knowledge, but none confessed to passing on information. No significant difference was observed in the overall mark for the OSCE on day 1 ) and day 2 ). On day 2, marks were considerably greater for four stations and markedly lower for three stations. It was not obvious why collusion should affect these station marks. A clear indication of the effects of collusion could only be obtained from a single subsection of an individual station where 82 students on day 2 incorrectly gave the diagnosis from day 1.Conclusion: Marks do not provide a sound inference of student collusion in an OSCE and may mask the aspects of professional development of students. (shrink)

Dr. G. S. Kirk has suggested that the last line of this fragment represents the bridegroom as being ‘fantastically ithyphallic’. This seems quite likely; but it would be more so if a parallel for the unusual use of the expression ‘a great man’ that it involves could be adduced.

Jebb renders the last clause as follows: ‘The warrior of the white shield, who came from Argos in his panoply, hath been stirred by thee to headlong flight, in swifter career.’ ‘In swifter career’ is a discreet rendering of ., Jebb says, ‘does not mean “in flight swifter than their former approach“ nor “the reins are shaken ever faster on the horses' necks”.’ ‘The Argives’, he writes, ‘began their retreat in the darkness : when the sun rises, the flashing steel (...) of their bridles shows them in headlong flight’. Cf. P. Mazon, R.E.G. xxv , 13. This view is shared by all modern scholars, except that Dain and Mazon put commas after and translate accordingly; which I do not think is an improvement. How to Cite This Article. (shrink)

A problem in the text of Pindar, the interpretation of λαρετον, O. 2. 87, seems to be vanishing, swept away by a remarkable consensus of recent criticism, a consensus the more remarkable in that it accepts a false solution to a genuine difficulty. This article has two purposes, the first and more important of which is to argue that the currently prevailing answer is manifestly wrong, the second to offer evidence in support of a different approach. Simply read γαρυτων, recent (...) critics maintain, and all problems disappear. Since -ο- and -ω- were not yet distinguished in the orthography of Pindar's day, γαρυτων is as correct as the unanimous γαρύτον of the MSS, testimonia, and scholia. By this simple change, the argument proceeds, the troublesome dual of the MSS is purged and with it the ‘historicist hare’, as one critic has recently called it, which less enlightened Pindarists chased for so long. If there is no dual, there is no need to speculate as to the identity of the ‘pair’ likened to κρακς and contrasted with the ‘divine bird of Zeus’, the man who is wise φυ. We need no longer suppose that the μαθντς are Simonides and Bacchylides – the traditional answer – or any other specific rivals. Unfortunately for this view, there is no evidence to justify taking γαρυτων as a plural, which is of course precisely what critics have been doing. It is – if anything – a third dual imperative , and every bit as much a dual as the γαρύτον of the MSS. Mr Stoneman is not alone in his ready dismissal of the ‘historicist hare’. Here is the view of Professor Lloyd-Jones: ‘… the lightest possible alteration converts the dual to a plural imperative, so that the number two vanishes’. A year before, Professor C. A. P. Ruck had chided the scholiasts for ‘reading out of Pindar's ΓΑΡΥΕΤΟΝ the dual…rather than the plural’. Bowra had declared that γαρυτων ‘would be the plural of the imperative’. The belief is widespread and persistent; those who wish a full conspectus of earlier views on the matter may consult the massive compilation made by Dr J. van Leeuwen in 1964. Not all critics and editors have endorsed the change from the traditional reading. While it has been in the successive Teubner editions since Schröder adopted it in 1900, neither Turyn nor Bowra accepted it. But among those who have argued for γαρυτων, only one has expressed any doubt that it is a plural, and that one is Theodor Bergk, who first proposed it. Indeed Bergk expressed no doubt about its being a dual. (shrink)

The last few words involve a difficulty which only Wilamowitz has perceived. The adjective could do either of two jobs: it could mean ‘without a feast’ or it could be part of an expression like meaning ‘a feast that is no feast’ and made on the model, etc. If it is being used in the former way, follows oddly upon.

In recent years the general view of the theology and morality of Aeschylus which we still find expressed in the most popular handbooks of Greek tragedy has come under fire; fire which its defenders have so far been unwilling or unable to return. That Aeschylus was a bold religious innovator propounding advanced doctrines can no longer be assumed without argument; neither can one take for granted that his outlook on morality in general and on justice in particular was as advanced (...) as it was once usual to maintain. (shrink)

So many scholars nowadays believe that the final scenes of the Seven against Thebes as we have them have been considerably distorted and interpolated that some may not be aware that such an opinion was first expressed little more than ioo years ago. The first scholar to do so was A. Scholl, who afterwards recanted.

No project lay nearer to the heart of Eduard Fraenkel during his last years than that of promoting a reprint of the famous book Die dramatische Technik des Sophokles, by Tycho von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff, which was first published as volume xxii of Philologische Untersuchungen in 1917. Tycho Wilamowitz, the son of Ulrich von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff and the grandson of Theodor Mommsen, was killed fighting against the Russians near Ivangorod on the night of 14/15 October 1914. After his death the manuscript was prepared (...) for publication by his friend Ernst Kapp, who has explained in the foreword of the book the nature of his services. (shrink)

All commentators so far as I know have believed that lines 100–1 are simply a vague paraphrase for Jebb's translation may be taken to represent the usual view: ‘… is he threading the straits of the sea, or hath he found an abode on either continent?’ But this sense is not only poetially inept, but linguistically impossible.