LOOK, it was the grown-ups who invented the new exams - the teenagers are just making the best of them, so can we please stop blaming them for doing well?

Exam results are up again. Well, yes, of course it raises doubts about standards.

My own bugbear is language-teaching. University professors say that even the brightest and best students coming into first years now don't know as much about their specialised subjects as students 20 or 30 years ago.

But I bet they know a little bit about a lot more.

When Esher Rantzen went to Oxford in the 1960s she had, I think, six O-levels. Can you imagine anyone applying there today with six GCSEs? Of course not. Eight or nine O-levels was the most that most people did. But now students routinely do ten or 11 GCSEs. The seriously bright will do a dozen or more, great strings of them.

Same with A-levels. We normally did three. A lot of people did only two - and if you did well in those two, it would get you into a top university. Only the real high-flyers did four, which meant nobody in my country grammar school in all the time I can remember. Five was absolutely unheard of.

But now every decent comprehensive has its clutch of sixth-formers with five As at A-level. Even six is not that unusual.

If bright teenagers aren't getting stretched with the depth of the subject they're studying, then they opt for breadth instead by taking more subjects. They're taking the exam system as they find it and making the most of it. Good for them.

The old exams were just for the elite. Back in 1964 when a friend had 100 per cent in O-level history, it was so rare, she had a congratulatory letter from the exam board. Now full marks - while still brilliant - are a fairly regular occurrence, even at A/S level. The new exams are for everybody, but the elite will still make the most of them in their own way. They should be praised and encouraged for doing so - instead of criticised and their achievements belittled.

A solicitor friend of mine did his A-levels back in 1965, got three As and went on to get a first-class degree. Then last year decided to study A-level history, encouraged by the rumours that the exams were getting easier. He managed a B. "Exams might be getting easier," he said, "but they're still bloody hard."

Exactly.

I'M sure plenty of fat and ugly students got their A-level results last week. But you'd have never thought so from the television pictures, would you?

DIANE Pretty has Motor Neurone Disease, is totally dependent on other people for every tiny aspect of her life. And she wants to die. Unfortunately, she is so weak that she cannot even do this for herself and would have to ask her husband to help. If he does, he risks prosecution. And that is exactly as it should be.

Of course Mrs Pretty has the right to die. Of course she has the right to ask her husband to help. Given the circumstances, it is highly likely that, if it came to prosecution, the courts would deal leniently with Mr Pretty, as they have in other similar cases.

But however exceptional and humane the reasons in this case, we cannot let assisted suicide become routine. It is too easily open to abuse. However painful in individual cases, it must always be challenged, always be a serious and considered decision that stands up to a court of law. For otherwise, where will it all end?

TEENAGERS in a survey by BUPA have apparently said they would like to exercise more with their parents.

No, I didn't believe it either. On the other hand...

Put your average teenager next to pink-faced mother in bulging Lycra or father in baggy shorts and chainstore trainers and most teenagers would run a mile. So maybe it would work after all.

DAVID Blunkett wants asylum seekers to this country to learn English - which seems sensible enough. But he has been attacked for being elitist, Hitler-like and a Little Englander.

Why? America - which knows even more about immigrants than we ever will - expects new citizens to learn English, know a bit about the constitution and swear an oath of allegiance. Not only do they all speak English, but they all speak it in pretty much the same way. For a vast country, it has surprisingly few regional accents.

Many years ago I taught English to Asian children newly-arrived in the centre of Birmingham. They would rush home and teach their parents what they had learnt. Their new world was frightening and confusing enough as it was. Even a few words helped make it clearer. Speaking the same language seems a pretty basic requirement to getting on well together. The surprise is only that we haven't insisted on it earlier.

"Edward and Sophie to take rest of year off." said the headlines.

From what, exactly?