 He found similar overall levels of attainment between the two cohorts.The articles suggest rising GCSE scores owe more to 'teaching to the test' and grade inflation than to real gains in mathematical understanding.Between 1975, with the introduction of the national alphabetic grades to the O-Level, and the replacement of both the O-Level and CSE with the GCSE, in 1988, approximately 36% of pupils entered for a Mathematics exam sat the O-Level and 64% the CSE paper.