TEENAGE chemist Toryn Dalton gained great results when he took part in a national experiment.

The Bolton School pupil was one of 2,500 16-year-olds nationwide who stepped back in time to answer questions teenagers from the 1960s to the present day faced — and he came third with 84 per cent.

He said: “I was shocked to hear that I had done so well, but also delighted.

“There has been a lot said about exams getting easier and I wanted to know for myself if that was the case.

“What I found was that in my grandparents’ day there was more practical and mathematical problem-solving, where as now it is about issues such as global warning.

“But that does not necessarily mean exams have got easier, and it is not easy to measure.”

The online chemistry competition was organised by the Royal Society of Chemistry, which is trying to discover whether standards have fallen in chemistry since the 1960s.

The winner was Nathan Brown of King Edward VI Camphill Boys School, Birmingham, scoring 94 per cent. The average mark was 25 per cent. The average mark for the 1960s questions was 15 per cent, and for each subsequent decade, this rose steadily, reaching 36 per cent for 2000 onwards.