Professor Nathan Xavier
June 23, 2017 10:42 AM
Advanced CATS Prep: Review by Professor Nathan Xavier
Nathan was pleased with the progress of the 'advanced' Herbology class. He was confident that by next year he could start teaching them lessons that actually qualified as advanced. In the meantime, there was only a month and a half left before their CATS exam. They had, by now, covered just about all of the material. There was just one more small section left on Fanged Geraniums. They had planted seeds for those back in the beginning of March, but it would still be a few more weeks before the plants matured enough to see the flower in all its fanged glory. Until then, there was review and practice testing.As each student arrived, he handed back the pretest they took in the last lesson, each of which had a large letter in green ink (he'd switch back to a more traditional red for grading as they got closer to the real CATS, but for now he didn't want too scare them too badly with the number of corrections and comments he was providing on their first attempt at taking a old CATS written exam, so he was hoping the friendlier green ink would be . . . less intimidating). He hadn't expected many Os at this point and hadn't given out any either, but the class had done very well, all things considered. Specifically considering the thing where they'd only had three years of Herbology instead of five before taking this test.
"Not bad at all," he said encouragingly, handing back an A to one of the students, which they might not agree with, but he had graded possibly more stringently than even the real exam would be graded and an A really was, as it stood for, entirely Acceptable. An E actually did Exceed his Expectations at this point, and a Poor was within shooting distance of passing by the end of the year.
"Good news," he told the class once everyone had arrived, gotten their tests back, and taken seats, "You are all on track to pass your CATS at the end of the year. I did grade this very harshly, so what you are looking at now is probably your worst case scenario. I expect every one of you can bump up at least one letter grade by the time you take the real thing.
"Today, I want you to go over your test, see what you got wrong, read my notes, and pick a topic you had trouble with to write a short research paper on. I have books on my desk for you to use. Your essay should be at least half a foot and is due next class. I've decided to hold a low key essay writing class today specifically to give each of you an opportunity to have a private conference with me if you like to talk about your individual challenges with the subject, so feel welcome to come up for a quiet consultation whenever you finish looking over your test results. If my comments are self explanatory and you don't feel you need to talk to me, that is fine, too. You may converse quietly amongst yourselves as you work, if you wish, preferably about Herbology."
OOC: Talking to Nathan is entirely optional; your character may opt out with no penalty, or if you want to just say it happened and not actually write that part in favor of interacting with your peers, you may do that, too.
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