OotP: O.W.L.'s

[Judy]

No: HPFGUIDX 63229

"Michael Guenther" <mguenthe at c...> wrote:
...
> >I thought it odd that in this book they're told they won't receive
> >their OWLs until July, when at the end of PoA we hear that the
twins
> >scraped a few OWL's each and Percy got his top NEWTs, and THEN they
> >all get on the train home.

 And  Muridae replied:
> Actually, this is a more likely scenario than the exam results at
the 
> end of PoA before term ends, simply because those external
examiners 
> have got a lot of papers to mark... 

Hmm, so O.W.L. results were given immediately in PoA, but not until
July in OoP. I think I have an explanation for this inconsistency!  The
Ministry of Magic is now micro-managing Hogwarts.  Perhaps before, the
Hogwarts teachers administered the O.W.L.s themselves and gave out
grades almost immediately. Now that Fudge no longer trusts Dumbledore,
these external examiners have been brought in, and have to file all
sorts of reports before the grades go out.  Maybe even Fudge himself
is insisting on reviewing the exam results.  Hey, government insisting
on adminsiering school tests has a lot of parallels in the real world,
at least in the U.S! 

-- Judy Serenity, who will go to great lengths to defend JKR from
allegations of flint-yness