The Eggplant and Snape and I

[Matt]

No: HPFGUIDX 139373

-- "Cathy Drolet" wrote:
> 
> > There are 40 students, according 
> > to JKR, in Harry's year. 

-- a purplish vegetable replied:
 
> Yes but she also said there were about 1000 students at 
> Hogwarts and 7 times 40 is not equal to 1000. JKR has 
> admitted she's not very good at math so I think a 
> statistical analysis is unlikely to lead to new insights 
> into the books. 

She was asked to resolve the inconsistency in her publication day
interview.  She said that she has always intended that the number of
kids in Harry's class was forty, even though that may not square with
the total number of wizards that "ought" to be at Hogwarts based on
the British wizarding population.  (see quote below)

Given Rowling's degree of precision with respect to Harry's class, I
think it's reasonably safe to assume she intended to convey the
impression that 10 of 40 received Outstanding O.W.L.'s, though whether
she really meant that as a comment on Snape's teaching is a more
doubtful question.  

Since people have said that the O.W.L.'s are supposed to correspond
roughly with some standardized exam system in Britain, maybe folks
there could give us an idea whether a 25% rate for the top mark is
within the range of plausibility within that system.  I know that that
"high pass" rate would be above average -- but well within the range
of possibility -- on the U.S. advanced placement exams.  But the APs
are administered only to students who elect to take them after one or
more advanced courses in the subject, whereas all of the Hogwarts
students (viz. Crabbe, Goyle) seem to take O.W.L.s at least in the
core subjects, which would seemingly lead to lower grades overall, if
the grading schemes were comparable. 

-- Matt