My experience as a sixth-form college teacher suggets that the Civitas report is spot-on. Every year we receive a large intake of students with a healthy crop of GCSE subjects, who are nowhere near as capable as the exam results suggest, but whom we are expected to get through A levels.

Most of them have been so spoon-fed through GCSEs that they have long lost the habit of thinking for themselves, and they expect to be told precisely what to write; they are indignant and often angry when we refuse. So far we are holding out, and after a year, those who survive to AS level are much improved. However, this then leaves us only 12 months to get them up to the standard needed for A level exams - so it's no surprise if they too are easier!

Yes, we have become expert at getting students through exams; it doesn't mean we have turned very average students into genuine university material. The whole thing frequently feels like an elaborate and expensive fraud.

Gill, Southampton, UK

There's a simple way of telling if the exams have become easier. Just compare the Lett's study guides from the mid 1980's to those available now. Each book comes with a summary of the course syllabus from the relevant exam board. Back in the 1980's there were over 30 different exam boards, each with their own pass mark threshold.

Michael, Edinburgh, Scotland

There's an easy way of settling this question. Let pupils now have a go at papers from the past, marked according to the same criteria. See how they score.

I for one have few doubts. When I was a schoolboy it was known that standards were rising; in all subjects, material from the 1st year undergraduate syllabus was creeping down to A level, and what was A level material 5 years ago was appearing in the O level papers.

Nowadays the opposite is true, and we have university departments in despair because students arrive without the skills or the knowledge to tackle the ordinary 1st year syllabus. There is talk here and there of extending courses which have always been of 3 years by an extra year to cope with this problem.

It will be a long job to educate a new generation of teachers who know and aim for what our young people are really capable of. The first step is honestly to acknowledge the problem.

Michael Bruce, Selby, Yorkshire

This should have read, A levels are considerably easier than 20 years ago and easier still than 30 years ago.

Judy , Liverpool, england

I sugges they go back and do their research as you can't get a "F" at A level....

S Lord, Bolton,

Isn't Mr Dunford's statement that, "The modular system of A levels has also helped to raised achievement because it means that pupils don’t have to learn everything for last-minute tests,” the same as an admission that they have made the exams easier? He also omitted to say that allowing repeated attempts at modules and changing the weighting of certain questions had also achieved the same effect.

Stephen, Ipswich, Suffolk