A Level exams are not 'easier' just different, say pupils in Redland, Bristol.

Every August, thousands of pupils in Bristol get their A Level exam results and every year more and more seem to obtain top grades but this comes with a price - as every year, people level the accusation that exams are easier than they used to be. This year the pass rate was a record high - at 97.8 per cent.

It happened when I got my exam results over a decade ago, I remember my mum saying that GCSEs weren't as tough as the old O-Levels. Now, we have hardworking pupils having to fend off criticism that exams now days are just too easy. Earlier today, a blogger on the Telegraph website event went as far as to dub A Levels a 'national joke'.

Toby Young wrote: "A-level papers have got easier, examination boards are more lax, teachers are better at teaching to the test – but few people believe it's because our children have actually become more intelligent." Redland graduate Tom Benson, 29, added: "You only need to look at the amount of people going to uni nowadays to realise that exams are too easy. Even when they ask for the top grades, the pupils get them. That can't be because young people are cleverer today than they were before."

But is there any foundation in these allegations? Even with the introduction of the A* grade at A Level a couple of years ago and an ever-growing number of pupils achieving this, pupils and teachers at Redland High think not. Redland High enjoyed an impressive 100 per cent pass rate, see previous article.

Lucy Jetha, 18, who got two A*s and one A, said she had to work very hard for her A Level exams and was revising solidly for two months beforehand. She said: "Taking modules does make it easier and they have showed us old French papers and it did seem harder but that's because it focused on different skills. Then it was more like straight translation, now it's more applied with spoken French. They're not easier, just different." Sorcha Regan-Capes, 18, also a pupil at Redland High, added: I wouldn't say they are easier. Everybody I know put the work in and they deserved the results they got."

What do you think? Should we cut A Level students some slack and congratulate them before grumbling about how easy exams are today? Or does the exam system need a revamp?