I have a question I was hoping someone could answer about hermione's owl grades. it says she got 10 outstandings and 1 exeedes expectations in DADA, thats 11 classes. but in the 3rd book, she dropped muggle studies and divination, so she takes;

1. astronomy
2. care of magical creatures
3. charms.
4. defence against the dark arts
5. herbology
6. history of magic
7. potions
8. transfiguration
9. arithmancy
10. ancient runes.
11. ???

what was her 11th class? i just can't think of it, does anyone else know?

Please don't double post. Somebody will answer when he/she knows it.

Did she drop muggle studies? Where did it say that I haven't read the third book in a while

sorry about the double post, i deleted it. and at the end of the 3rd book she said she dropped it and ron asked why cuz she got like a 130% or something crazy like that on the exam.

Do you neccesarily have to be in a class to take an exam? She could ace a Muggle Studies exam without taking a class, couldn't she? I mean apart from simply being Hermoine, she's Muggle-born.

We never hear the criteria for taking an exam.

I don't remember another class that she's taken.......

you have to take a subject to take an O.W.L. -- it would be really slytherin-ish to make all muggle-borns take a muggle-studies exam if they're not taking the subject. if she dropped it 2 years ago (in her 3rd year) they wouldn't make her take the OWL, i mean she missed 2 years of the class (her 4th and 5th year), that doesnt seem possible. good idea though.

If she wasn't taking the class, they wouldn't have made her take the exam, but she could have chosen to take it. I think that's what Ringo meant. It's just like you can choose to take an AP test without taking the class, if you know the subject already.

i doubt she wante to study even more, but you'd think they would have mentioned it in the book.

Crystalline - that is what I meant! I was referring to the way you can do with AP tests....I mean...come on.....Hermoine loves exams, right? why wouldn't she want to take one she didn't have to study for?

wow thats a really good point, i never noticed, and i cant think of any other subjects either. maybe she got an extra one for being REALLY good? haha

knowing hemione though, no matter what subject it was- easy or hard-- she would go crazy studying for it. i dont know, maybe it was just a mistake in the print.

Well im taking A2 general studies exams in january and summer, and im not taking the actual lesson. So why cant hermione do the same?

She is muggle born, so she wouldnt have to study too hard for the exam.

And i know hermione studies for exams when she knows that she knows the contents of the subject, but she has mellowed out a bit, maybe she thought shes just take it for the sake of it?

I think its just a case of JKR not being able to add properly. She has made mistakes like this before.

she dropped muggle studies AND divination... you can read all that in Azkaban.

speaking of Hermione's OWL grades, does it bother any of you that she didn't get an O in DADA. i mean, she got an O in everything else. it's just crazy you know. hermione, she's really good. it's not just the books you know. as much as she insists it, you don't learn everything because of a book. she's a very powerful witch. nobody can do magic by just reading a book. my point is, hermione, who is a very able witch, and who does all the studying, didn't get an O in DADA. i mean, what does DADA have that the other subjets doesn't. what does hermione lack??? she's powereful, none of us can deny that. she works hard. i don't know, i'm just bothered. maybe it's just me...

oh hey, sam91a, i'm sure you've rechecked the books for the 11th subject, so if you don't know about it, i'm sure no one can. i think this one is a mistake.. wow, you've spotted one. hands down to you. maybe they'll revise the next editions because of you...

hmm, if only mugglenet would accept this as an eligable mistake, they wont take it for some reason.

Thanks for replying, i thought this topic was long dead.

You think that later editions will be made? hmm, i nevr thought of that really. That would be odd to see "Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince 10 year aniversary"

Well, anyway, thanks for posting;)

I've been poking around online for a list of subjects to see if I could find the missing one and I came across this website. It also points out that there is a subject that we don't know because of the 11 OWLs.

"6th Optional Subject

There must be at least one more optional subject that is not mentioned because Hermione received eleven O.W.L.s yet she had dropped two of the five known optional subjects. However, this discrepancy may be attributable to J. K. Rowling's (self-admitted) questionable abilities in math."

Well found, I didn't notice that. You never know, she might be taking occlumency privately. Don't ask me why, just a thought as to the other subject. Then again, is it even a listed subject at Hogwarts for students to take?

Leanne
xXx

i doubt she took occlumency, she would have said something to Harry and DD wouldn't have told Harry to keep it a secret if it was open to the whole school. Even if she was taking it privately, like Harry, she wouldn't have to take an O.W.L. for it.

In the website you mentioned, there's flying and apparition. Neither of these are O.W.L. subjects.

With flying, after the first year, your goal is to get onto your house's quidditch team and the "test" is winning the cup.

Apparition is only to prepare students to take their M.O.M. tests, and also doesn't include an O.W.L.

I believe that this is just JKR's (self-admitted) questionable abilities in math.

I am however open to any more suggestions.

Thank you for helping me answer my question.

typo?

Well, yes, that could be it too, you should have seen all the problems the publishers for the Lord of the Rings put into the first few editions.

Maybe JKR made a mistake? We will probably never know and to be honest I never really noticed that Hermione had more OWLs than classes ... but some of you said she could have volunteered for Muggle Studies. But that would mean that she should have been off to the exam at some stage but JKR never wrote anything like it. I mean Hermione never went to do a Muggle Studies exam, JKR didn't say anything about it, did she? And JKR usually always states stuff like that.

I agree that this was probably a mistake on JKR's part. In response to josef wronski, I think it's perfectly reasonable for Hermione to not get an O in defense against the dark arts. There's no question about how good she is, but to get an O it sounds like you have to be absolutely perfect in the test and show off that you know a bit more than was covered in the class. Harry did that with his patronus - that's probably why he got an O. Hermione has always been good at DADA, but she sometimes goofs up. In PoA, she messed up her exam by running out of the closet with the boggart, sobbing. She is undeniably an extremely powerful witch, but that doens't make her perfect at everything. I also think she needed at least some little thing to humble her, so that she doesn't get overconfident with her schoolwork in the upcoming year.