Some slightly tame CATS on Cascade Hall

DH Skies

July 06, 2014 3:35 AM

Some slightly tame CATS by DH Skies

Normally, not much varied from year to year in terms of the CATS exams. The questions on the papers and the faces of the students changed each year, occasionally an examiner would be replaced, but for the most part, they stayed the same. That was why it was so odd to see the students with heaps of notes that were normally forbidden. There were fewer of them than usual too, with some having opted to take their exams after catching up in summer school.

The examiners moved around, handing out slightly different variants of the anti-cheating quills – ones which didn't object to notes being referenced, although would draw the line at anyone trying to make them simply copy a previous essay verbatim.

The examiners themselves had remained the same. Strict Nanette Langdon patrolled the aisles, struggling not to twitch or allow her reflexes to take over at the site of what would normally be blatant cheating. On the other side, Roland Ashburn bobbed about, smiling encouragingly at anyone who's eye he happened to catch. He felt for the students during exam time and, during the practicals was much more likely to let things go on the grounds of 'accounting for nerves.' Aurora Septentrion and David Weatherby completed the team. Whilst both were more even-handed with their marking, they could cause nerves of an entirely different kind. Blonde-haired Aurora tended to try to time calling in students to get only girls, in order to mitigate this effect, whilst David attempted the opposite but for the same reasons.

Each exam day featured a theory test in the morning, which all the candidates sat together, followed by one on one practicals with the examiners in the afternoons.

OOC – You are free to write for your examiners.

0 DH Skies Some slightly tame CATS 26 DH Skies 1 5

Annette Pierce

July 06, 2014 9:59 PM

Taking Advantage by Annette Pierce

The Anns had decided, with minimal discussion on the subject, that they would both take the CATS at the normal Year-End time. An extra couple of months over the summer wasn't going to improve matters enough to make up for not having notes on hand. They had divided the labor of making up crib sheets: Annette took Care of Magical Creatures, Defence Against the Dark Arts, and Charms while Annabelle made up their test notes for Potions and Transfiguration. (This was deemed an equitable division of labor since, though Annette had three subjects while Annabelle had only two, Annabelle's two were far more intensive; potions, especially, nearly counted as two subjects on its own.)

Once the first sets of notes were completed, the twins took turns teaching the other how to find key information on the sheets. Annabelle, for example, had painstakingly listed out every ingredient - in alphabetical order - and its properties, followed by every potion that they had covered in detail during class - also in alphabetical order - and what ingredients it contained. To keep from replicating the entirety of five years worth of potions textbooks, she had opted not to copy down how to make each potion. Despite that reserve, she had still complained of a sore wrist even this morning. Annette didn't really blame her. She'd found alphabetizing the Magical Creatures they'd studied a daunting enough task.

The Charms notes were arranged by year, so they increased in difficulty, and the last year's worth of spells took up as much parchment real estate as the first three years together, in part because they had increased in complexity, and in part because there had been much less time to internalize how those worked. The advanced students had tried their best to keep the curriculum going, but it just hadn't been the same as having a real teacher. The Transfiguration notes followed a similar pattern, though Annabelle had chosen to break that out by type (Inanimate to Inanimate, then Animate to Inanimate, then Inanimate to Animate, then finally Animate to Animate) rather than by year. Again, the newest concepts took up much more of the notes than the early stuff.

For Defense, Annette had chosen to split it Spellwork vs Dark Creatures, with the Creatures being listed alphabetically with their most salient traits, as she'd done with the COMC notes, and the Spellwork following the Charms yearly pattern.

In all, they had a great pile of notes, perfectly duplicated so they each had a copy, that were far more in depth than they would have been able to manage if they were each making their own sets of notes for all five core subjects. Annette settled down for her first day of testing, feeling secure in the knowledge that she couldn't be any more ready for the CATS than she was right now. The feeling didn't last much longer than the first page of questions, but she pressed on determinedly, making the best of the situation and referring to her notes frequently.

She ran out of time for the theory test every day, but she felt the answers she did finish were correct and well developed. She also discovered she came much closer to completing the tests related to the three subjects she made up the notes for than she did the two Annabelle had, which was likely the advantage of doing them all yourself.

The practicals had been a point of dread for a long while, as she was still better at casting with Annabelle nearby than she was without Annabelle's support, and the CATS framework, in particular, was not favorable for them. She muddled through Charms, casting correctly but weakly for the ones she remembered how to do (which was most of them, and after giving Charms tutoring during the first part of the year, the beginner ones were among the best she'd ever cast alone).

Transfiguration went poorly - she'd gotten Nanette Langdon for that one, and things just started going downhill after her first simple cup to candlestick transfiguration did not go as well as she would have liked and the woman made a quiet tsking sound as she wrote extensively on her grading pad. Confidence shaken, Annette's next attempt to turn a tea cozy into a frog utterly failed aside from turning it green and slimy, giving it legs, and making it jump a little bit. The final transfiguration of a sparrow into a hedgehog was best not remembered at all. Annette decided that night that she didn't like Transfiguration anyway (despite the fact that she had previously planned to continue with the subject next year), so it was stupid to cry herself to sleep over a probable failing CATS grade in it.

Almost as if Karma was apologizing for the Transfiguration debacle, Annette got Roland Ashburn for her DADA practical. She had her creatures down (though her ability to cast Riddikkulus was mediocre at best), and her spellwork, while not stellar or strong, was technically correct, and even the times when her jinxes barely had any visible effect at all, Mr. Ashburn said she did well, and was smiling as he wrote stuff down on his grading pad. She didn't think she'd get an O, by any means, but she thought if he was really kind, she could probably get an E on her practical.

Potions went about as well as she could expect it to. There was no wand waving for that, so she managed a decent output, though she chose not to get fancy and opted for the potion option that was only the second-hardest. Care of Magical Creatures could have gone a little better, if she'd hadn't been having flashbacks to the Transfiguration practical by drawing Langdon again. But she only shrieked the one time when a crup nipped unexpectedly at her fingers, and after that she remembered that the critters were far more likely to take off a body part than the proctor was, so she was able to give her attention back to the creatures, where it should be, and things went more smoothly after that.

In all, it was an exhausting week, and she felt bitter about Transfiguration practical whenever she thought about it, but the rest of it could have definitely gone much worse, given that she was short half a year of professorial tutelage.

1 Annette Pierce Taking Advantage 247 Annette Pierce 0 5

Annabelle Pierce

July 06, 2014 10:37 PM

Likewise by Annabelle Pierce

Annabelle approached the CATS with the same set of notes Annette brought, but a much less confident assurance that she was ready for this. However, when she actually got to the test taking, she found her preparation let her breeze through the Potions and Transfiguration theory exams with barely a glance at the glossaries she'd written in advance. Those two, she actually finished. The other three were slower going, though she skipped over anything she didn't know immediately, and came back to those with her notes after she reached the end of the test packet. Charms had half an essay left to go when time ran out (and there might have been one or two short answers she overlooked in her second pass), while DADA and COMC were definitely missing entire questions, including at least one essay question each.

The practicals were horrible, as expected. Well, potions went well enough, though she did not like that she had to handle the animal guts herself. She grimaced through cutting those up and she saw Aurora Septentrion cover up amusement more than once as Annabelle went "ew ew ew ew ew" as she carried the prepared ingredients from the cutting board to the bubbling cauldron and swiftly cleaned her hands as soon as they were dumped in. The final solution was very slightly off-color, and didn't seem to have quite as strong an effect when tested as it should, but she hadn't shrunk away from trying the hardest brewing option (as it was one she had gone through when trying to decipher ingredient effects only a few days ago and she still recalled the tricks written in her margins to get through the more difficult spots of the process), so even if it wasn't perfect, she still thought she did a good job with it.

She got Langdon for Charms, which was unfortunate, but she was solid on her basics after teaching them to the beginners during the fall, and while all of her spells lacked potency, even the more advanced ones were performed with precision. Even with the strictest grader proctoring her, Annabelle felt pretty sure she'd at least gotten an E.

Transfiguration was nothing to write home about - that being the subject that she needed Annette nearby for the most to get the spells to work right - but she'd obviously done better than Annette at it, given how disconsolate her sister was after that practical. She wrote it off as unlikely to be continued with next year, since she wouldn't take it if her sister didn't, and Annette seemed to think she was going to get a Troll.

Care of Magical Creatures was a disaster. It had never been a favorite, and as it got more advanced the creatures got less cute and cuddly, and as if that wasn't bad enough, she got David Weatherby as her proctor. Well, that, in itself, wasn't a bad thing. He was supposed to be a fair grader. Unfortunately, his hair was just so adorable like that, it was so much easier to watch him than the creatures, and the creatures did not care for that very much.

DADA was about as unremarkable for her as Transfiguration had been, with one major exception. In Transfiguration, she had not gotten scared to death by her sister walking into the room only to be attacked and eaten by a werewolf and no amount of her own screaming or reassurances by Ms. Septentrion would reassure her that it had just been a boggart and all was well until she actually saw Annette alive and well. Fortunately, that had been the last part of the test, and she was able to do so very soon after that.

1 Annabelle Pierce Likewise 246 Annabelle Pierce 0 5