"You're paying for someone to write it, supervise it, mark it and provide a flying school for you to do it in."
Fair Point for the prob 20 minutes supervision and the 20 seconds to mark the paper, plus providing the flying school premises to do it in ....but surely you can't justify cost by including writing the exam, how many times does such a basic exam need need to be written?
Shouldn't the "writing" of an in-house exam not get cheaper each time it get used, you know like initial outlay cost amortised over time.
I'd think such a basic exam would be simply a copy, or edited copy, of something written some time ago, seriously how much can a Pre Solo or pre area solo exam change?
And kudos to the OP for bringing it up, students should put such things in their basket of questions when checking out the costs of his/her prospective schools.