Discrepancy of skills

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 147998

Exodusts wrote:
> Absolutely. But the Devil's Snare was a real life-or-death situation. 
> The DADA exam was an exam. Hermione lives for exams. Think of the 
> preparation she did. Exam stress didn't put her off in any other 
> subject. It can't be the practical element that put her off, since she 
> did Outstandingly well in other subjects requiring practical work. She 
> should have got an O. Harry should have got an O plus some kind of 
> special recognition from the Exam Board. That way Hermione could still 
> be jealous, and learn to deal with imperfection; the recognition that 
> she cannot always be the best at everything. Her E seems just a teensy 
> bit contrived.
>
Carol responds:
I understand why you think it seems contrived, but it doesn't seem so
to me. Harry, having completed his written exam feeling that he's done
very well, easily completes all the tasks in the practical exam, is
praised for his excellent work and given a chance for a single extra
credti point, probably because he has already scored 100 percent (and
because the examiner has heard that he can produce a corporeal
Patronus, and based on what he's seen so far, is confident that he can
do so). That would make his score 101 percent, definitely outstanding.
(Hermione receives 112 percent on one of her OWLS, probably
Transfiguration, but I'm not certain. So it's possible to receive more
than 100 percent. Still, 100 percent, even without extra credit, is a
perfect score if no extra credit is involved and is still an O. We
know that Harry has had practical experience that the others haven't
had, so even with so few good DADA teachers, his Outstanding can
hardly come as a surprise to any reader.

Hermione, in contrast, has had the same poor teachers and very little
DADA experience--this is *before* the events in the DoM. She has only
the DA lessons with Harry and some experience with minor Dark
Creatures in Lupin's year. For some reason, she never had a chance to
face her Boggart in his class, and so she blew that part of the exam
in her third year. If a Boggart showed up on the OWL practical for her
as it did for Harry, she has never learned how to deal with it (Harry
doesn't bring any Boggarts into the RoM) and so she would fail it again.

Let's say that 50 percent of the exam is the written portion and that
she achieved full marks on that. Then she's given five spells to
perform, one of which is a Riddikulus to defeat a Boggart. If she
misses that one spell out of five, that's ten percent out of 50
percent, making her score 40 percent for the practical and 50 percent
for the written or 90 percent overall. In an American school that
would be a B (above average). In the OWL, it would almost certainly be
an E (Exceeds Expectations). A very high E, very close to an O, but
still an E.

I'm not saying that this is how the OWLs are scored, but I think it's
likely that the set-up is similar to what I described. One missed
spell or one wrong answer to an essay question and you have an E, not
an O. And to me it makes perfect sense that Hermione, intelligent
though she is, would still get a lower score than Harry on the DADA
because she lacks his personal experience, and especially as she has
never learned how to face her Boggart. (Shall we blame Lupin for that
one?)

Carol, who doesn't understand why Hermione has to be perfect. She
still got eleven OWLs, a lot more than Harry or Ron. The only one she
didn't get was Divination, and that's because she dropped the subject.