I'm not so sure
our teachers did that joke thing of giving us past papers from quite a few years before and they were substantially harder than the ones we had.
( Amberl was stripey and dominated Europe, Thu 25 Aug 2011, 20:37, 1 reply, 14 years ago)

Because the questions were often written in a different way
or covering slightly different things, that you hadn't been taught how to address.
(Bazongaloid, Thu 25 Aug 2011, 20:43, Reply)

Perhaps
the papers certainly seemed harder, and I was relatively smart.
( Amberl was stripey and dominated Europe, Thu 25 Aug 2011, 20:46, Reply)

I got straight A's through my GCSEs and A levels and a first, so I'm quite happy to say I'm good at doing exams
but as I said, when you look at older papers set under a slightly different curiculum they appear "hard" to me, because I hadn't learnt how to answer those questions. Had I been taught how to answer those questions I doubt I would have found them hard.
(Bazongaloid, Thu 25 Aug 2011, 20:50, Reply)