Zack Dill
May 03, 2005 10:01 AM
pretesting by Zack Dill
OOC: Didn't realize this was up, then I was out of the country for a little over a week. Hope its not too late. BIC:Astronomy. Now that was a real class. Solid science, unlike most of these weird subjects that this school was passing off as education. Really, who needed to know how to fly or take care of magical creatures? Not that he expected the fact that it took eight minutes for light to reach the earth to have a significant impact on his life, but Astronomy was a subject he'd had before, that he could discuss back home and people would understand what he was talking about (well, up until he got into quasars or something). There were Discovery channel shows about this.
Zack felt like he was coming home.
While he was pretty sure that Dione wouldn't tell him that Vulcan existed despite his previous inability to find it in either the night sky or scientific star charts, but after Reiner had told him Tolkien was real, he could still hope, couldn't he?
He turned to the back of his spiral notebook as the teacher told them to pull out some paper, and tore out the last page along the perforated edge. He put his name at the top of the page, the date along the right margin, and his house (Aladren) under his name. He left a blank line, then wrote 1-10 on every other line below that.
He smiled to himself as he read the questions and started filling in the answers with all the pride of a science geek knowing he was going to do well.
1. Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, Pluto/Charon (double planet)
He paused to count that there were nine (ten if you counted Charon) there. Nodding to himself when he verified that he hadn't missed any, he moved to the next question.
2. Smallest: Charon. Largest: Jupiter.
He looked at that answer for a moment, biting his lower lip and wondering if she was of the school of thought that believed Charon was a moon, and therefore he should put down Pluto instead, but even Pluto, according to some recent studies, barely qualified as a planet and maybe he should put Mercury. He decided to leave it as it was. His first answer established that he was counting Charon as a planet.
3. Ellipses.
4. Venus. It's got an atmosphere to hold in the heat.
He stopped again to think about that answer. How much detail did she want? Should he go into the physics of how the photons got trapped and were unable to escape into the void of space as they were able to do after hitting Mercury? It was just a pretest, though, so he left it like it was. If it was going to count toward his grade, he'd write a thesis paper for her. Besides, he'd only left two lines for his answer.
5. Galilean moons orbit Jupiter. They include Io, Europa, and Ganymede.
6. Jupiter has the Red Spot.
7. True. The sun is much bigger than all the planets combined. Bigger than all the planets, asteriods, comets, and satellites in the solar system, too.
He frowned at that answer, realizing too late that his last sentance didn't have a verb in it. He reminded himself it was a pretest. She wouldn't take off points for grammer.
8. Many of Uranus's moons are named after characters in William Shakespeares plays, including Puck from A Midsummer's Night Dream and Ariel from The Tempest.
9. Terrestrial: smaller, solid ground, fewer moons.
Jovian: bigger, gaseous, lots of moons.
He hesitated and wondered if 'bigger' and 'lots of moons' were too much the same thing, but decided that since he couldn't think of another obvious difference immediately that he'd keep it like that. There were just two more questions, including the bonus, and he'd be able to go back if he thought of something else.
10. It spins the other direction.
He didn't like the brevity and lack of clarity in his answer, but he couldn't think of a better way to describe it.
Bonus:
Zack frowned at the question. What? Phases of the moon in potions? They certainly didn't cover that in fifth grade or on the Discover Channel. And what the heck is a Famous Wizard Card? He left the bonus question blank and tried to think of a better way to explain retrograde rotation. He didn't manage it before the professor started collecting the papers.
\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
1
Zack Dill
pretesting
40
Zack Dill
0
5
Asher Tallow
May 04, 2005 12:40 PM
*crosses fingers* Please, let this be covered in the text by Asher Tallow
Asher listened to Dai Oni's lecture with a slowly growing ball of apprehension expanding in her stomach. Holy cripes...what the heck was an 'AU?' And what was Dai Oni talking about when she said 'K?' What ever happened to good old miles and fahrenheit? She muffled a groan as she continued to hopelessly copy down notes.She really had thought that out of all her classes, it would be this one that she could claim some amount of excellence in. After all, the few bits of hands-on material astronomy would have would probably involve telescopes and thankfully nothing magical. She couldn't possibly screw it up too badly. The rest of the stuff, well, she had her memory to save her, and as long as she made sure to read all the texts, then she could just regurgitate her answers. So what if she didn't understand it all- at least, she would have it memorized, and that's all teachers really cared about anyway.
Venus sounded sort of interesting- not that she was about to confess this anytime soon. But the idea of the planet having a day longer than its year made her wonder. How would people do birthdays there? Would 365 Venus years equal one birthday year? Wouldn't that mean someone living there could say 'I'm 1,826 years old' and really mean that he's only five?
Asher's mouth quirked at the thought, and she added that last bit to her notes. Maybe if she had some free time she would look it up in the library. At the very least, it'd be something cool to tell her brothers later on. They could even make it a new game: Venus World. She grinned at Laura the once, feeling the need to share her amusement with a friend, before returning to staring stonily at Dai Oni.
No way was Asher going to let on to the ice demon that she was enjoying the class. No way, no how.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
0
Asher Tallow
*crosses fingers* Please, let this be covered in the text
1466
Asher Tallow
0
5
Nic Sawyer, Crotalus
September 07, 2011 12:41 PM
You can't handle the truth by Nic Sawyer, Crotalus
Nic sighed heavily as only a fourteen year old boy being asked to stand up right after he sat down with a bag full of cookies could. He was too much a Crotalus to ignore Professor Diaz's instructions completely, but he took his sweet time about putting his snack away, standing up again, and starting to help the other students move the furniture around.If this was going to be some kind of cheesy game, he was totally dropping this class after CATS. Surely, he had enough basics to handle whatever 'gifts' genetics forced onto him by now.
He moved into the circle, wishing he could still be looming in the back where it wasn't quite so obvious how hideously tall he was compared to everyone but Demelza Eagle, who he'd just about caught up to with his most recent growth spurt last fall. The sense of being way too big was exacerbated when the teacher placed herself next to him and he realized how tiny she was.
As she explained what they were doing today, he forced himself not to verbalize his dismay. Normally, he didn't really have a problem with telling the truth when he spoke, but that had a lot to do with the fact that he didn't often speak. He could handle tact by not speaking, but now he had to say something. Something good and something bad, neither of which was he entirely comfortable with. Giving compliments made him feel weird and insulting people was something he reserved for people who deserved it.
And he was first so he had to do it to the professor.
"Uh," he said, trying to think of something - anything - to say about Professor DiAnna Diaz. "You're a better divination teacher than all the subs we had last year." That was the truth, but it didn't sound too soft and fuzzy. Now the hard part. He'd been taught to be respectful to his elders. "And, um, you're shorter than my mom."
Okay, not saying a lot. He got most of his height genes from his dad, but Mom was over five and half feet tall herself. That made her a midget compared to him and Dad, but she was above average for women. He had to come up with something negative, though, and looking down at her, really the only thing that came to mind was how far down he had to look to do that. Maybe she was as sensitive about that as most short people seemed to be and she'd take it as a negative instead of a neutral.
1
Nic Sawyer, Crotalus
You can't handle the truth
165
Nic Sawyer, Crotalus
0
5
Samantha Hamilton
September 27, 2011 9:06 AM
The whole truth by Samantha Hamilton
The more she thoguht about it, the more Samantha actually found herself enjoying Dvinations classes. She hadn't expected to; she only took the subject because she was in Aladren, and therefore taking everything. Admittedly, she would have been curious about a subject that proclaimed it could help you to predict the future, even if she wasn't studious and competetive the way she was, but the apparent lack of empirical support for the subject was enough to put her off right from the start. Increasingly, though, the fourth year noticed that the classes were academic, that Professor Diaz would give them hard facts and figures, and sometimes quite difficult work to do. When it felt like a real subject, Samantha felt compelled to treat it as such, and in fact a lot of the stuff they learned in Divinations was more obviously useful than some transfigurations classes.Today, Samantha entered the class with interest, their most recent assignment proving difficult, and thus she was inclined to like the subject, as it challenged her suitably. She tried not to be discouraged when they had to push their desks back (she was momentarily concerned they would have to sit in a circle, hold hands and chant, or something equally hokey), and instead noticed how tall Nic Sawyer was when she had to stand next to him. Samantha was by no means short for a girl her age, but that simply meant she was dwarfed by the worst Keeper Sonora had ever known (and that included Grayson Wright, whom Samantha had succeeded as Aladren's Keeper).
As the assignment was explained, Samantha felt an irrepresible wave of dread. Not only was she expected to be honest to her classmate's face, in front of everyone, but then someone was going to do the same to her, too - they were going to spill her worst feature and lay it bare for scrutinty. Dear God this was awful. At least, the fourth year thought with minute relief, she hadn't been standing one space over and had to give Porfessor Diaz an unhappy truth. She thought Nic took a cop-out approach by just saying she was short, but then, what else was he supposed to say? In his position, Samantha would have just waited for the floor to open up and swallow her rather than pick up on a teacher's faults to her face. In comparison, being honest to Nic was going to be a walk in the park.
Immediately, Samantha thought of the best and worst thing about Nic, and it was, in fact, the same fact. "You're shockingly bad at playing Keeper," she told him, feeling as though she ought to be blushing at being so rude so openly, but finding instead that she rather enjoyed it. "But you keep going back to it, and I have to admire your determination." That sort of humilation would have put a lesser person off for life, no matter what Charlie Abbott threatened him with.
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Samantha Hamilton
The whole truth
159
Samantha Hamilton
0
5
Josh McLachlan
May 16, 2012 12:16 AM
What's yours? by Josh McLachlan
The class was finally beginning during which Josh was growing more and more uncomfortable. He didn't enjoy being in a place where so many things screamed muggle and, therefore, her name. He could even recognize some pieces of technology after going to her house for a couple days under the guise of visiting his pure blood friend during the winter holiday. He took a deep breath and was nearly startled when the girl next to him exclaimed her answer. He appraised her quickly. Short, peppy, an attention-seeker. Talkative too, most likely. He turned his face away when she finished speaking, instead looking at the professor. Since he was right next to her, he supposed he had to go next."My name is Joshua McLachlan," he said, though the attendance sheet would most likely say his full name. The incident in Colorado where his parents had been killed had been in the newspapers everywhere especially because of the McLachlan reputation. "Maximilian Joshua McLachlan," at least in Scotland, was known quite well as "the orphaned McLachlan." It was a tiring reputation to have. He'd received looks of disgust and pity most as a child growing up in Scotland. It was lucky that he'd moved at eight years old. Going to Hogwarts would have been unbearable.
Now he needed to come up with a reason as to why he was taking this class. He didn't want to share his extremely personal reason, so he thought quickly. "For the muggle technology," he said stiffly. He was reluctant to speak, his voice hoarse after it had gotten deeper in his adolescence. "As to what I'd like to obtain...one of those computers would do." The edges of his mouth turned upwards, but that was the extent of his smirk. What were they supposed to say, anyway? They hoped to learn more about muggle technology? They wanted to be able to interact with muggles sometime in the future? Josh raised his grey eyes to the ceiling, hoping this wasn't one of those blow-off classes.
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Josh McLachlan
What's yours?
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Josh McLachlan
0
5
Jeremy Reddington
May 16, 2012 11:51 PM
They seem to be interested students... by Jeremy Reddington
Jeremy's face lit up with delight. The responses all similar, and that they wanted to learn Muggle Studies, not to gain a career out of it, though it could possibly occur, but for the curiosity of knowing what it was all about.
'Well...at least none of them said out loud, that the only reason they are here is to score a good grade.'
"How wonderful," he began, "It's a pleasure to meet you all, and for the young gentleman, Josh? You are very likely to have your chance of using a computer.
Our topic is communication. So can anyone give me a list of different ways in which we communicate?"
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Jeremy Reddington
They seem to be interested students...
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Jeremy Reddington
0
5