Ointment found before spoken exam in Scottish castle (8)
I believe the answer is:
balmoral
'scottish castle' is the definition.
(I've seen this before)
'ointment found before spoken exam' is the wordplay.
'ointment' becomes 'balm' (synonyms).
'found before spoken exam' becomes 'oral' (I can't justify this - if you can you should give a lot more credence to this answer).
'balm'+'oral'='BALMORAL'
'in' acts as a link.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for balmoral that I've seen before include "Queen's castle" , "somewhere in Scotland" , "Royal family's holiday residence in Scotland" , "Queen's Scottish home" , "Royal castle in Scotland" .)