[billfruit]

May be it is an Americanism, never heard of the word used in that manner before(as a non American).

[Reebz]

In Commonwealth countries at least, some synonyms for recitation are “tutorial” or “study group”.

[Gene_Parmesan]

I think it is rather an American tradition, and it's not not even present at every university here (or at least by that name), but it's also not recent. I've found references going at least to the 1910s.