I think it's a fair question. Nothing wrong in being inquisitive, it's what makes us engineers. Ofcourse it's obvious the preparation shouldn't be based on trying to find any 'trends'.
I am sure everybody has varying experiences about the exam, but I felt the Oct'16 WRE exam was a little more straight forward (though memory of the test is now faded). Based on my minimal preparation (10 days) I was still able to get a score in the 40's, by finding and applying information from CERM ( only reference in hand). I felt, April'17, was more conceptual, really tested understanding of the basics ( including some left field word problems). Generally, I felt, either you knew how to solve the question or not (based on how clear your basics were), and no amount of reference look ups could help. For the breadth, I don't think I looked up any reference material more than 6-7 times. Depth was more of looking up formulas and unit conversions.
It was an interesting though, to experience how different the two tests were even though they had the same specifications, testing the same concepts but from different angles.
