I think it's fine that they required three speeches/poems for Module B.
However, I also think it was within the parameters of the question to ask for three scenes from King Lear or Wuthering Heights or In the Skin of a Lion etc. That, imo, would have made the question fairer.
As a student who studied Speeches, I learnt all 12 (around 7 or 8 thoroughly) and one of the main reasons for doing so was because in 2002 a speech was prescribed making it impossible to entirely prepare a response...they could have asked for any speech, in which case I'd be stuffed if they prescribed one I didn't study. So the fact that they have prescribed a speech in past is incentive enough for many students to have an understanding of all the speeches. Not to mention that in learning 12 speeches you have to know about 12 different historical/political/social contexts, 12 different composers and 120 quotes (if you want 10 per speech) - essentially 12 different texts.
So I don't think students doing Speeches have any advantage over those doing King Lear and thus, I can't see how requesting three speeches "evened the playing field" at all.
Having studied A+C for Module C, I had an understanding of the entire text however I was prepared to discuss 2 or 3 scenes in detail. So students doing King Lear, though being required to understand the text as a whole, need only have a detailed knowledge of several scenes that they may use in the exam. Put that up against 12 speeches and it doesn't seem like so much does it?
