64$ Cram and its Amenities. November, 
these questions ; that is to say, he takes a sedlion of those 
50 questions each time.” 
Hence it will easily be seen that any candidate about to 
be examined by this gentleman must, however much or 
however little he may know of the subjedt in general, be 
prepared with the answers to these fifty questions. But the 
judicious coach can make a still closer approximation to the 
mark, and still further narrow the ground upon which his 
pupils have to concentrate their attention. Most examina- 
tions are twofold, partly in writing and partly oral. The 
coach just quoted has observed that: “ The written ques- 
tions are used for the viva voce at the next examination, and 
vice versa. Examiners have an enormous inclination towards 
that. If I hear that a man has given (certain questions) 
viva voce on any given occasion, those questions are very 
carefully considered for his next paper. I am pretty sure 
that in his subsequent (verbal) examination he starts with a 
few fresh subjects, and that when he is tired, towards the end 
of the day, he will have got over his first selection, and he 
will think of what he will ask, and the probability is that he 
will drop on to the last examination paper, because he has 
considered it carefully and brooded over the answers.” 
So much for the “ positive method ” by which the coach 
ascertains approximately what any given examiner is likely 
to ask. But the examiners have other idiosyncracies in 
addition to the mere repetition or non-repetition of questions, 
and these, also, the coach notes and takes into account. 
Thus, one examiner may have a fondness for theories, 
whilst another, on the same subject, adheres more to fadts. 
Everyone has his special prediledlions for certain phases of 
his subjedt, upon which he, consciously or not, insists. 
What, for instance, would be the fate of a student in 
chemistry who presented himself for examination at South 
Kensington without an extensive knowledge of graphic 
formulae? Were he as deeply versed in the philosophy of 
the science as Mendelejeff, did he rival Fresenius in analy- 
tical skill, and vie with Baeyer in the power of effecting 
organic syntheses, still, lacking this wedding garment, he 
would be ignominiously cast out. 
So much, then, for the “ positive method,” by which it is 
calculated what an examiner will probably ask. I turn now 
to the complementary stratagem, known as the “ negative 
method,” by which it can be approximately ascertained what 
the examiner will not ask. This method, says the same 
coach, is “ by no means equally applicable. There is one 
gentleman whose examinations have extended over sixteen 
