The Wizarding Council's Official Examiners
May 20, 2011 7:50 PM
Critical Assessment of Talents and Skills by The Wizarding Council's Official Examiners
It was that time of the year, the time were the fifth-year students would be tested on their magical knowledge. It was a hard test, it had to be. The Critical Assessment of Talent and Skills was made to assess the children in everything they were supposed to know by now. It was the first important test in the magical education, but not the last, RATS would come soon enough. The students taking the CATS were a larger group than the ones taking the RATS, because of that, four examiners had been sent from the Council. This year, the examiners were only going to sit down with the fifth-years, there was no graduating class.The Cascade Hall had been rearranged to serve the exams purposes. Aurora Septentrion, David Weatherby, Roland Ashburn and Nanette Langdon, watched the students pile in and take their places. The four examiners were quietly chatting among them, while the students came in. David Weatherby was a portly, middle-aged wizard with grey hair with a few strands of brown. His characteristically twinkle was always present in his green eyes. He was tough but always gave compliments to students that deserved it. Roland Ashburn was the youngest and tallest of the four of them, always cheerful with a wide smile on his face, not to mention that he was a pushover when it came to the students. Out of the four of them, Nanette could be considered the most fearsome. Back always straight, and her characteristic tight rigid neat bun pulled her face, not one piece of her iron grey hair could be seen out of place. Her hairstyle emphasized her sharp, pointy features and intimidating gaze. It was rumored that she could tell if a student was even thinking about cheating, and she had a reputation for ruthlessness that had been validated by generations of students. In contrast, Aurora´s hair fell loose down her back, neat and untangled. Her blue eyes were framed by a pair of elliptical spectacles. Her less rigid air didn’t mean that Aurora was less stern than Nanette. The Blonde took her role very seriously.
Once the last student took its seat, Aurora used her wand to close the door. She was not a fan of unpunctuality. She sent anti-cheat quills along with the exam booklet to each student. Aurora finally spoke up, “Your time will start in a few seconds. Remember to keep your eyes on your exam, if I see something dodgy going on, it will be an automatic fail,” she looked at the clock. “You may start now.” The theoretical examination would take place during the morning, the afternoon was going to be used for the practical portion of it, a break between the examinations would be provided for food or more revising.
OOC: Theoretical exams in the mornings, practical exams in the afternoons. Mandatory classes are covered over the first two days, any electives your character takes (e.g. independent study of ancient runes) are examined on the third day. You may write for your examiner in the practicals. Have fun!
Subthreads: Nice CAT by Edmond Carey, Aladren with Edmond Carey
Can I get the kind that meow instead? by Jose Hernandez, Pecari with Jose, Jose Hernandez
Let the fun begin... by Andrew Duell with
Into the Arena. by Marissa Stephenson with
This isn't a cat. by Jethro Smythe
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The Wizarding Council's Official Examiners
Critical Assessment of Talents and Skills
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The Wizarding Council's Official Examiners
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Marissa Stephenson
May 23, 2011 11:15 AM
Into the Arena. by Marissa Stephenson
Marissa did not look much like her usual self as she took her seat in the Cascade Hall before the beginning of CATS. The only make-up she had on was mascara and a little pressed powder. Her long hair was pulled back into a ponytail. She was wearing a t-shirt, sweatpants, and a pair of fuzzy slippers she had purchased, over the summer, specifically for the occasion.Today wasn’t about being pretty. Today was about trying not to flunk out of school. That meant, in the clothes department, that today was about comfort. Or would have been, anyway, if all the other students had gotten the memo about what constituted proper exam attire where Marissa came from. As it was, she felt a little conspicuous, though she told herself firmly that it was just that imaginary audience effect that Mama had read about somewhere. Everyone here, she was reasonably sure, had bigger problems than wondering about what it was she was wearing and what had possessed her to wear it. It was CATS day. The next seventy-two hours would help determine how their entire lives went. Anyone who did notice might even get what she’d been thinking without having to ask.
Still, she thought she might change during lunch. It wasn’t like she was likely to be able to keep down any food she could force herself to ingest anyway.
The written portion of the exam went by quickly and smoothly. Many of the questions seemed to be rote memorization, and while she hadn’t taken the practice exams’ suggestion that they would need to know a few simple potions by heart completely seriously, she didn’t think that she embarrassed herself too much on those questions. She was particularly proud, too, of being sure that she got every single question about a wand movement or incantation or both correct. She knew her stuff, even if she couldn’t effectively use it.
She finished with a little time to spare, only just enough that she began to feel conspicuous before the first exam period ended. Then, her windpipe beginning to feel as though it was constricting, along with everything in her chest, from sheer panic, she nearly ran back to Crotalus, where, having skipped breakfast as well, she ended up dry heaving in the bathroom and just hoping her stomach wasn’t hurting so much when it was over that it was distracting during the practical exam and being grateful that she didn’t have a roommate to hear all this. Finally, shaking all over, she was able to pull herself upright, eat an apple-cinnamon bar and some raisins and most of her remaining stash of chocolate, and change into clothes that would make a better impression, only just getting back down to the Hall in a timely manner.
As small as her class was, it still had just enough people that they couldn’t all be examined at once. Because her year had the audacity to have a Brockert, a Carey, and a Duell in it when her surname started with an S, she was going to be in the second group.
Some might have been happy about that. Marissa was anything but. There was a reason she usually volunteered to go first for things when she had the choice, and it was because she both couldn’t handle the suspense and because she didn’t want the examiners remembering Edmond freaking Carey making a perfect score in everything and giving the impression that the rest of the year except Cassie Kerrigan was made up of particularly slow trolls even before she failed to perform firstie spells. Now, not given the choice, she couldn’t concentrate, or do anything but eat more raisins, spilling them from the box into her hand and then picking them up one by one. One by one. One after another.
”Stephenson, Marissa,” someone said, mispronouncing her name. It was Ma-riss-a, not Ma-rees-a.
Then she realized what it meant, and forgot all about pronunciation as she began to worry about passing out, or possibly running screaming into the desert. Oh, God. Oh, no. It was her turn. She realized her legs, traitorously, were standing up, her hand taking out her wand. Oh, goodness gracious, her head was actually holding itself high as she walked forward. Didn’t it know this could only end in complete and utter humiliation? That this was going to be the worst day, bar none, of her life?
“I’m Marissa,” she said, her voice trembling only slightly less than her hands as she faced the youngest of the group of executioners – er, examiners.
“I’m Roland Ashburn,” he said, giving her a smile she thought was meant to be friendly. It came across to her as threatening, as though he was just waiting for a chance to rip her throat out with his teeth, but she thought it had been meant to be friendly. “Nice to meet you. If you could step right this way, please…”
For a few minutes, it didn’t go that badly. Her hands began to steady up. Her stomach stopped twisting, or at least twisted less violently. She was able to give Ashburn a tiny smile after she successfully finished a spell they’d learned in third year.
Then he gave her a task at grade level.
Marissa touched her lips with the end of her tongue, her stomach twisting right back as hard as ever as she tried to work herself up to it. She had known this was going to happen. They started it off small, on spells she could actually do, but then they got up to grade level. That was the point – to see if they were good enough to go on to RATS-level study. She had known this was going to happen. She would just have to have nothing happen and move on with it.
“Miss Stephenson?” Ashburn asked.
Oh. She had to do it now. Okay. She could do this. Marissa took another breath – she didn’t think she’d done that recently enough – and held out her wand. Wand movement, incantation, concentrate. That was all there was to it. She could get partial credit, she could - “
The object she was supposed to be charming exploded. Loudly. Marissa ducked instinctively, hitting the floor hard, to avoid shrapnel. Which was present.
For a few seconds, she just stared at it. Then she whispered, “I’m sorry,” and then found she couldn’t really say anything else.
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Marissa Stephenson
Into the Arena.
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Marissa Stephenson
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Marissa
May 26, 2011 11:24 AM
Back for seconds. by Marissa
She never worked out how, but somehow, Marissa convinced herself to go to the second day of exams.She worked through the first section mechanically, sure she did very well, just as she had been the day before. She spent most of lunch pretending to study with the other prefects and trying not to imagine bashing Edmond over the head with the gravy boat. She went back out of the hall while it was being rearranged and the first group was examined. She stared at her shoes.
Then, she heard her name again. The witch, an older lady, pronounced it right this time. Marissa followed her to a testing area numbly, supremely indifferent to what the old lady had thought of her the moment she saw her and to what was about to happen.
Seeing a cauldron, though, sparked something. Taking Chemistry – or, in her family, AP Chemistry, and that was the minimum – had been one of her greater fears when she was still a Muggle, but its nearest equivalent had become the one class at Sonora where she could still do well. Sometimes even excel. She could remember debates, and slight expressions of approval for perfect potions, and essays….
“Hard,” she said flatly, and started working without asking for permission. It might be denied, after yesterday, and while she wasn’t sure if making one good grade would seem like going out with her head high or seem just pathetic, it felt right now like the right thing to do. Get glory where it would come.
She was uncharacteristically vicious as she decapitated dead caterpillars, and by the end she was sweating, bits of brown hair coming out of her ponytail and frizzing around her face, but the damn potion was the right color, and she stepped back almost defiantly before she caught herself and schooled her expression to something more appropriate for her examiner’s benefit as the old lady went to examine the cauldron.
She didn’t say much, but Marissa didn’t get a negative reading from her face. Well, any more than seemed to be intrinsic to the woman’s face. Then came the fatal word: “Transfiguration.”
It was, as Marissa expected, a disaster. It wasn’t, to her surprise, a complete disaster. She even finished one of the fourth year level spells, and got about halfway through a fifth year one before it melted. She was so shocked that she was unable to so much as get the next two to do anything at all. How had that happened?
She still hadn’t figured it out when she was dismissed for the day. One more to go.
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Marissa
Back for seconds.
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Marissa
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