Thanks. It seems this is the consensus. Although what my instructor is
aiming for is possible (and I'm sure he can do it regularly), it's
awfully difficult in practice. He says the full deflection should be
for just an instant, while I usually have it for maybe 2s.

Thanks to everybody else who replied, too.

Alan Pendley wrote:
The 3/4 scale deflection tolerance is only for tracking a VOR or ILS;
passing over a VOR will almost always get full scale deflection in the cone
of confusion.

Regards,
-Alan

PP-ASEL-IA
============
He correctly points out that the
standards call out 3/4 deflection as max deflection, and there seems to
be nothing to account for this type of thing. So, is this (passing
directly, I mean directly, over the navaid) a skill that I really should
have down by the time of the checkride? Just looking for a 2nd (and
possibly 3rd-150th) opinion here.