From a discursive perspective, differences in the language in which mathematics questions are posed change the nature of the mathematics with which students are expected to engage. The project The Evolution of the Discourse of School Mathematics (EDSM) analysed the discourse of mathematics examination papers set in the UK between 1980 and 2011. In this article we address the issue of how students over this period have been expected to engage with the specialised discourse of school mathematics. We explain our analytic methods and present some outcomes of the analysis. We identify changes in engagement with algebraic manipulation, proving, relating mathematics to non-mathematical contexts and making connections between specialised mathematical objects. These changes are discussed in the light of public and policy domain debates about "standards" of examinations.