Oxford - Women undergraduates at Oxford may be lagging behind their male counterparts in the race to get the best degrees because they do not get straight to the point in exam answers, a leading psychologist suggested yesterday.
A study of 232 students suggested men did not get more firsts because they had more ability but may instead be favoured by the exam process, using "elegant bullshit" to arrive at a definite conclusion, according to research by Dr Jane Mellanby of Oxford's Experimental Psychology Department.
Men scored better even though women had a generally higher "work ethic", her study, carried out with colleagues Dr Maryanne Martin and Dr John O'Doherty, found.