Are You Smarter Than a Baby Boomer?

"Are exams getting easier?" It is a headline that screams from our newspapers every August when the exam results are published. Of course, we all tend to look at the world through rose-tinted glasses and nothing is rosier than the past. Thus, we believe that we, as kids, had it harder, that we got by just fine without mobile phones and computers and that learning was an altogether more difficult business - especially exams. Are they getting easier?What better way to come to your own conclusion on this thorny subject than to take yourself back to that nerve-racking moment when the invigilator uttered those portentous words: "Okay, you may turn over your paper and begin."? Are You Smarter than a Baby Boomer? gives you the chance to inhabit the mind of a post-war student, perhaps still suffering the effects of food-rationing in the 1950s or coming to school with the sounds of the new pop music ringing in his or her ears in the early 1960s. Test your wits on genuine exam questions across a range of subjects from that era and see how you measure up.

Gordon Kerr worked in the wine industry, bookselling and publishing before becoming a full-time author. He is the author of a number of books including A Short History of the Vietnam War, Dead Famous and Great British Losers. He divides his time between Dorset and Southwest France.