I'VE been thinking of re-taking my 'O' levels (GCSEs to the youth of today). Come to think of it, my A-level results weren't up to much so I may give them a go too.

In my day it was up to eight (super-swots took nine or ten) of the former and generally a maximum of three (four or five for the swots) of the latter.

Nowadays, or so it seems, most people take about 30 of each and pass all of them with flying colours.

Anyway, once I've sailed through my A-levels, I may enrol on a degree course and try to improve the mediocre grade I lazily achieved more than 20 years ago.

I'm bound to get a first class honours. And with that I might just apply to NASA and become a highly-paid research scientist.

Students are doing so well these days. From what I've heard it is most unusual for anyone to fail an exam.

Is it any wonder? Years ago, when I was at school and exams were looming, we would set time aside to revise and spend every spare moment jotting down little notes - key dates in history, types of cloud formation in geography, passages from Shakespeare.

Now, it seems, no student worth their salt wastes their time doing any of that. Instead, they have a number of options...

Buying on the internet

The numbers paying internet companies to write essays is soaring. Commercial writers are working round the clock to meet demand. Some target schoolchildren by promising guaranteed A and B grades in GCSEs and A-level coursework. To think I could have rid myself of all that stress, all those hours ploughing through textbooks. To think, I could have handed over my paper-round money and gone to hang out with my mates at the bus shelter. All those nights, when I could have been out snogging boys, wasted. All that time when someone else could have been grafting away on my behalf. When I do my retakes, I'll make sure I don't lift a finger.

The death of a goldfish

Exam boards now make allowances for pupils who have been bereaved. For the death of a parent it's an extra five per cent, a distant relative four per cent, and a pet two per cent. One of my goldfish died as I was about to take my mock GCSEs. I'd had him for eight years and his demise was both unexpected and, I thought, premature. I was upset, and there is no doubt that it affected my results. But no counselling was offered, and the trauma I suffered was not taken into account. An extra two per cent could have catapulted me from an E in chemistry to that all-important D.

Vehicle theft

Only recently two vans containing exam papers were stolen. The lengths parents go to.

Bribery

Pupils at a comprehensive school in Milton Keynes have been offered £200 to do well in their exams. If that had been operating at our school, we would have all have made it to Oxford.

Actually, I may not have done that well, but at least I did it by myself, without intervention, bribery or corruption. I think I'll leave it at that.

Updated: 09:08 Tuesday, May 24, 2005