Smarter than your kids?

Did you see the recent TV show?  Have exams got easier?  What does 'easier' mean anyway?

You decide.  Here are copies of the 1983 O level and 1986 A level physics syllabuses which I scanned-in (I don't think they're copyright but if anyone knows different please let me know quickly!).  You can compare them to the current AQA or other boards' spec and see for yourself.

I often hear that the maths content has been reduced over the last 20 years , so I separated out the maths requirements expected for each qualification.  The old A level one is here and a recent AQA one is here.

Have you heard this before - "O levels were just a lot of rote learning while GCSE is focused on skills, not facts".  Compare the O level (page 2) and GCSE (Assessment Objectives, AO's) for yourself.  Apart from the addition of coursework (of which more later ...) there is almost no difference between the two - around 2/3 at the lower-end of Bloom's taxonomy, and 1/3 higher-order skills.