I've always assumed that there's a rule specifying that muggleborns need a magical education, because otherwise they risk breaking the statute of secrecy. If their parents can't or won't pay for it they probably have their costs covered, and if their parents won't let them go, I'd imagine that liberal use of the confundus charm wouldn't be off of the table.

 

Do y'all think students were expected to memorize dozens of potions recipes for their exams, and hope you memorize the correct one you have to brew?

I would be screwed to that level of Hell where people are swimming and living in shit. I can't even cook without consulting the recipe at least twice for each step.

Thinking on it as I typed this out though, I suppose that in the countless hours of education we weren't privy to in the books, they'd be learning about how ingredient 1 interacts with ingredient 2 and so on and so forth and be expected to extrapolate that to the potion's endgame? Maybe similar to just knowing calculus processes vs the proofs behind them.

 

No, I fully believe they're allowed to look up the instructions as they're brewing the potion, since Harry was doing it throughout book 6 with Snape's modified instructions even in things like the competition for the liquid luck.

I believe its mostly about learning about the signficiance of specific ingredients, like we see them write an essay about the properties of moonstone in potions, so I assume they do this for a lot of key ingredients and are just assume to be able to draw conclusions on how theyd ineract with each other. We also see them do homework and answer questions in exams about specific potion but that seems more about their effects and properties rather than just needing to memorize their recipes.

 

I hate comparing potions to cooking. It's a lazy trope, and normally indicative of a bad story.

However

Have you ever watched the great British bake off?

One of the challenges they use is a blind bake. An ingredient list is provided, but no quantities. Instructions are vague, but available.

For instance, it might say "cream eggs and sugar to form a merengue".

It's similar to what I remember of a level chemistry - we'd be told we'd need to pipette solution 1 and then boil after the visible change. But not given instructions on what equipment to use, or stepwise instructions.

So maybe it'd be
1. Chop slugs
2. Stew the slugs, monkshood, and mouse whiskers
3. Once pre potion becomes silken, remove precipitate
4. Condense remaining liquid, and boil off to achieve Slughorn's equilibrium
5. Present remaining liquid, and solids.

So I'd expect in

 

There was a name change from O-Levels to GCSEs, but the OWLs and NEWTs are a direct nod to the Ordinary and Advanced Level exams, along with their format.

The link is a little less obvious for younger British people, seeing as their exams are now modular, but they used to be linear exams taken after two years of study, i.e., you'd be assessed for the entire two year course in the span of a few weeks.


At any rate, it's very much along the same lines as spellotape and sellotape, which reminds me ...

How does Owlgos sound, as the wizarding equivalent of Argos? Or perhaps that's redundant, given the existence of the Owl Postal Service

 

Isn't that pretty much how lab exams go? Almost all labs I had in college had over 10-12 experiments with specific tools/methods, and we had to memorize what to use and what to do in each one.