Roughly the same for me as JT. My IT teachers knew a lot less than me. I was often asked to format floppy disks for the teachers as they didn't know how to do it themselves. Don't forget though that this was in 1989/90 and computing wasn't as common place as it is today, especially in the workplace and in day to day life.

It's a long time ago now and I can't really remember what I had to do for the IT exam. I do remember having to do coursework about IT in the workplace, having to write a report style essay on an example of IT being used in the workplace, and finally some computing tests under exam conditions where we had to follow a set of instructions and word process a document, setup a spreadsheet etc... and I think that was all we had to do.

I didn't really need to try all that hard in GCSE IT and still got an A. In fact I didn't really have to try all that hard in any of my GCSE exams and passed them all with A's and Bs. We had been taught to O-Level standards as we were originally to take O-Levels (then the GCSE's were introduced and we were the first to ever take them that year). When we did the mock GCSEs we couldn't believe how easy the exams were. Based on this I still think GCSE's are much too easy compared to the odler exam systems. Maybe they need to be to try and show children as not getting thicker! Who knows.