Well it looks like the caa are telling different storys to OAT then. We were told that they hadn't changed the bank apart from removing questions (And they do have one of the examiners working for them).
And do you honestly believe that these poor guys have time to sit down and make up new questions? if the current exams still have a reasonable spread of pass fails, why bother. Of course they are going to say they are making new ones so that the instructors don't start missing chunks of the sylabus out to suit the current feedback questions. (aka what OAT is currently doing)
Anyway i am not saying that feedback is the be all and end all of the jar exams. But you can make you life difficult and go blind into the exams or not.
I was answering the question which has the better feedback. And from meeting people at gatwick from cov, bristol and sft etc Oxford does by a mile and even just running through the feedback once in the week before makes a huge difference to the number of gut feelings you have answering you don't need to learn them all.
And you may have a point about everyone should learn the subjects but like it or not there is a black market among wannabies for OAT feedback and notes because people pass exams using them (and i am not saying you won't pass if you don't have them). The pass is worth the same if you have used feedback or not.
MJ
Ps the comment about diving was because there must have been 10% of the paper on DCS. Mind you in 10 years of diving i have never used or heard the term strangles or creeps.