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Call it dumbing-up if you like. English finalists at Cambridge were asked this year to discuss the following question: Tragedy/ When the feeling's gone and you can't go on/ It's tragedy/ When you lose control and you've got no soul/ It's tragedy.

Second-class honours candidates attributed the quotation to manufactured pop sensation Steps - a catchy five-piece beloved of six-year-olds. First-class honours candidates correctly noted that the quote was from the Brothers Gibb, aka The Bee Gees.

Somehow, I don't think that Q (Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch) would have approved.

Christopher Warner
Undergraduate Trinity College
Cambridge.