Let's not confuse PPL exams with ATPL exams here. For both of them, you need to know your subjects, but for different reasons.
For the PPL exams, it's because the material, on the whole, is important to know.
For the ATPL exams, as IO540 says, most of the material is cr@p, but the questions are written in such a way that it is very difficult to pass most of the exams purely from learning the answers without understanding the subjects.
Hedges81 initially asked about the PPL Confuser, hence I interpret it to mean PPL exams. I only mention the ATPL exams because he posted originally in Wannabes (before it got moved here), so I suspect he might be going on to ATPL exams sooner or later.
FFF
--------------