riverrock83, there are mandated requirements for certain elements of the PPL course and the NPPL course, but there is no minimum instrument flight time requirement for the PPL course.
As the Chairman of the NPPL Policy and Steering Committee, I agreed with my colleagues that a minimum of 1 hr of instrument flight time was to be included.
Having flown dozens of PPL Skill Tests as a PPL/FE, I consider that the standard of competence exhibited for the '180 deg level turn' can be rather variable.
If you didn't do the skill test before your Q-XC then you would presumably need to re-do it after you had been tested (by which time you may as well just do the PPL).
Huh? The NST must be flown before the NPPL QX-C; the GST may not be flown until all other NPPL training requirements have been completed, including the NST and QX-C.