I missed the wall by a week...
Personally Tristan and Jakg I think you're both wrong (well you could guess I'd say that
). I do think exams are a pile of piss and the fact that I managed to get a C grade GCSE in French despite the fact that I genuinely wouldn't have a clue where to start ordering a loaf of bread. It was a complete joke because if you're sufficently stupid you can just do coursework rather than a written exam, which is a complete joke because all you have to do is shove it into google translator then your teacher virtually re-writes it for you when they mark your drafts. Then there's the oral where half the marks are for reading a prepared piece out and I did French higher
Once you get to A levels though universities just raise the bar, getting As becomes easier so offers go high until the stage when getting straight As isn't a good enough academic achievement for some (wish that was the case for me) so they just add A*s which completely undermines the system.
Having said that whilst I feel that exams are easier and we do have big social problems in society, world war is a rather Tristan solution to our problems. We've gone from Cold War to some imaginary war on 'terror' (whatever that's meant to mean) and despite the fact large parts of the world have never been in a less stable state politically no body seems to care, probably because large chunks of our population our population are too stupid to notice.
Whilst I think the fact that you can sue the council for falling off your bike (if Mummy lets you ride one in the first place) is a sad reflection on modern life I'd rather stick to reminiscing about bygone times and go racing historic cars with nice cozy 2008 safety