Examiner Raúl Barba
May 23, 2022 7:49 PM
CATS/RATS by Examiner Raúl Barba
Raúl sneezed. Loudly. His allergies were driving him absolutely crazy today. His eyes were itchy,his nose was itchy and dripping like a leaky faucet, and even his throat was scratchy.This was especially unfortunate given that it was CATS and RATS day at Sonora, his alma mater, where he had to get up and give the introductory speech.Which was something that was bad enough normally. Raúl really hated public speaking. He always had. He tended to be socially awkward and was always anxious about sounding stupid in front of people-and teenagers were more judgemental and likely to mock people than any other age group. Just because Raúl had been doing this part of his job for the last two years did not make him any less anxious about it and the fact that he was rather stuffed up and sniffly just made matters worse.
He wished he could have gotten out of this today, he really did. Unfortunately, Raúl was not inclined to ask his bosses for any favors, he had a tendency to keep his head down and do what he was told, whether he liked it or not. Even if he felt lousy and just wanted to take his allergy potion and lie down.
As the students entered the Elective Hall, Raúl sneezed again. Great. This was a terrible impression to make on the students who were taking the tests today. Then again, maybe they wouldn’t care, since aside from a few smug know it all types that popped up every now and then, students mostly approached their CATS and RATS exams with the same dread and anxiety that Raúl approached getting up in front of them and speaking. In other words, they were more afraid of him than he was of them.
Or rather, he supposed, they were more afraid of what he represented. In other circumstances, he wasn’t the least bit intimidating, even at his best. It was the big scary tests that would determine their futures that were intimidating and Raúl was merely the harbinger of that. A harbinger of doom, so to speak. Which was an idea that amused him due to its irony, something he needed to deal with the fact that people generally were less than pleased to see him. He just had to remind himself that it wasn’t him but the tests that they weren’t happy about. They probably didn’t care about him one way or another. Besides, if anything, he was one of the nicer examiners.
Raúl stood in front of the students and was just about to speak when he sneezed again. And again. And again. This was completely mortifying and he sort of wanted to crawl into a hole and die. Or at least crawl into bed and sleep until all the pollen went away.
Unfortunately, he didn’t have that option, so with what remaining scraps of dignity that he could muster, Raúl began again, clearing his scratchy throat. “Welcome students. Today, you will begin taking your exams. Fifth years, you will be in the classroom to the right taking your CATS and seventh years, you will be in the classroom on the left, taking your RATS. You will be given anti-cheating ink, paper and quills. You may scratch out and rewrite answers if necessary as well as ask for extra paper if you run out of space. Anyone caught trying to cheat will be immediately escorted from the premises and their tests will be submitted as is, which means they will receive zeros on the tests they haven't taken."
He coughed and continued.”"There will be breaks between the exams for each subject and between the written and practical exams. At those times, you may use the bathrooms and snacks and drinks will be provided. All us examiners are here to answer your questions but we cannot explain test questions to you.” Raúl paused to sneeze once more before going on again. “If you need testing accommodations, you should have a slip that explains them and you will be accommodated in that way.” He forced a weak smile and said. “Good luck today, I hope you all do well.” Raúl hoped that he managed to convey that he sincerely wished them well. It was a bit harder to do when he was not exactly at his best but he really did want to see the students all succeed.
Subthreads:CATS
How bad can this go? by Valentine Duell
Worries by Jasper Brockert
It'll all be over soon by Lavender Brockert
RATS
11
Examiner Raúl Barba
CATS/RATS
0
Examiner Raúl Barba
1
5
System
May 23, 2022 7:49 PM
System
May 23, 2022 7:49 PM
Sapphire Brockert
May 25, 2022 4:40 PM
*looks at it as if it's full of plague ridden fleas* by Sapphire Brockert
Sapphire simultaneously felt like she was going to vomit and pass out. RATS was upon them and she could feel nothing short of impending certain doom. She was going to fail and fail miserably. Well, she’d probably pass the practical parts, but she was completely sure that she was going to fail the written section.Never mind that Sapphire hadn’t done so on her CATS or that she had fewer subjects, RATS were harder ! The theory was more complicated and theory was what she had the most problems with. Explaining how exactly magic worked and why it did so was deeply confusing to her-and not terribly interesting either. Her eyes tended to glaze over when her professors got into it or it came up in a book she was studying.
Which, considering that any of that material could end up on her RATS exams, was a real problem. Sapphire would have to go back and try to read something again, after inevitably spacing out after her first attempt, only to struggle to read it and space out again on subsequent tries, making the Crotalus inevitably take longer to study any one topic meaning that she either had to study longer or miss something that might be on the exams. Which only lead to Sapphire becoming sleep deprived, making things even worse.
And people might think it was fortunate that Sapphire’s future plans did not involve anything where she would need good scores on her RATS. Not in that they thought that because they thought that she was stupid-although, that might be what she would assume they were implying if someone said that to her, especially as tense as she was- or even with resentment that they did need good scores for career and college prospects-also a totally likely thing that people might say to her-but just because it meant that Sapphire really should not have to work herself into such a frenzy.
Except, Topaz . Always ****ing Topaz. If Sapphire did not do well, her sister would taunt her relentlessly about how the Crotalus was stupid. Topaz had done that her whole life and if the seventh year did not do well on RATS, she would have to deal with that. Forever. Besides, in all honesty, she wanted to prove that she wasn’t as dumb as her sister told her she was. Proving Topaz wrong was a pretty powerful motivator.
Unfortunately, that meant that Sapphire was so tense and anxious that she could not even focus on the fact that as soon as they were over, all that would be left was the fair and then she would be free, free from academics and free from an environment where most people were completely uninterested in her. Although, at the moment, the former was more important to her.
She looked down at the floor as Examiner Barba, the same examiner she’d had for CATS, began talking. After nearly vomiting on him, she was embarrassed to face him again and did not want to meet his eye. Sapphire hoped that she wouldn’t get him as her examiner again, despite that he was very nice and even made an effort to calm her down and reassure her, just because it had been so awkward.
Then again…he had been very nice and made an effort to calm her down and reassure her. Maybe Sapphire would be better off with him than one of the mean ones. And she knew that there were mean ones. There had to be.
Once the examiner finished speaking, the written exams were handed out. Sapphire looked down at it with dread and began, words already beginning to swirl on the page.
11
Sapphire Brockert
*looks at it as if it's full of plague ridden fleas*
1459
0
5
Valentine Duell
May 25, 2022 6:04 PM
How bad can this go? by Valentine Duell
Valentine was a nervous wreck. She had stopped studying and tried to have a nice calming normal day the day before the tests. There were any number of distractions she tried; hanging out with people, working on gaming, spending time with people, walking out in the gardens, getting together with some people... but nothing seemed to work. She didn't seem to have much of an appetite all day, and going to bed early didn't help as she lay in bed staring at the ceiling all night long.She must have fallen asleep at some point since she woke with a feeling of dread way down deep in her soul. This was the end of her dreams, or would be once everything was done and over with. Val managed to eat some food for breakfast, that seemed to lessen the feeling of dread a bit. She made her way to the testing area and felt a little bad for the test proctor. He seemed to be a little under the weather and Val hoped he recovered soon.
Despite her sense of impending doom, Val sat down at her place and was determined to do her best. She had so many people that she couldn't let down, or at least that she hoped she wouldn't let down. She was just going to have to succeed at this for Mama and Papa and Bonabelle and everyone else that had helped her along the way, and maybe for herself as well.
Hours later, after it was all done she leaned against the wall in the hallway outside the test room. It was done, it was over. However it had gone, how well she had done, she wouldn't know for a while and there was nothing more she could do about it. It was a freeing feeling. Now it was just a matter of waiting and seeing what came of it.
2
Valentine Duell
How bad can this go?
1490
0
5
Jasper Brockert
May 26, 2022 7:19 PM
Worries by Jasper Brockert
Jasper really wasn’t all that worried about CATS. He was under no illusion that he would get a perfect score, the way Topaz had expected of herself and he was not going to put that sort of pressure on himself. He was just going to do the best that he could and hopefully get good enough scores that he could continue with the subjects he needed so he could go on to college and study his chosen field of special education.The Teppenpaw really wanted to work in an institution that cared for these disabled children, doing what he could to help them live better lives. While he was sure that he would need fairly good scores on CATS (and RATS) in order to do that, Jasper wasn’t worried because he had studied for the tests and had always gotten pretty good grades anyway.The fifth year was much more worried about Sapphire. Not because he thought she would do poorly on them but because she seemed like she was really freaking out about them. For weeks, the seventh year had been studying non-stop and she appeared to be exhausted. Sapphire was a teary, anxious, sleep-deprived mess.Jasper snuck a glance at his sister, she looked down right ill and he hoped she wasn’t going to end up having a seizure,which could easily be brought on by stress and probably lack of sleep.
He wished he could do something to help her, if not with the exam, at least to make her feel…less anxious.More confident in her own abilities. Plus, with the state that she was in, it might actually make her overall perform worse on the exam.
And what if Sapphire did actually have a seizure? Did the test examiners know that it was a possibility? Would they know how to tell if she was having a seizure and what to do in that situation? The one guy, the one that the Crotalus had for CATS, whom she’d almost puked on was friends with Neal, their tutor who’d noticed that Sapphire was having the seizures in the first place, had Neal told him what to watch out for?
Jasper heard a loud sneeze from the front of the room that drew his attention away from his sister. He groaned internally when he heard Examiner Barba’s stuffed up voice. That was the guy who might know what to watch for if Sapphire had a seizure and he didn’t seem at his best himself. Although the Teppenpaw felt bad for him, because Jasper knew that seasonal allergies-he was assuming that was the problem given that the proctor’s stuffed up tone was not unlike that of Miles during this time of year-could really make a person miserable-again, he thought of how they affected his cousin-it would probably make him less overall aware and able to notice whether or not Sapphire had a seizure.
Anyway, now the written exams had been handed out and Jasper had to focus on them so he turned to his test and began to work on it, attempting to put his worries about sister out of his mind but lifting his head every so often to make sure she was okay.
11
Jasper Brockert
Worries
1496
0
5
Lavender Brockert
May 31, 2022 5:55 PM
It'll all be over soon by Lavender Brockert
Lavender was as ready for her CATS exams as she was ever going to be. Which was good considering that she was not going to get any more time to prepare since they were today. So, she hoped that she had prepared enough. At least, well enough to keep the classes that she wanted to keep and adequate in everything else.In the end, that was the way that Lavender had done her studying. For example, she had no intention whatsoever of keeping Defense Against The Dark Arts. She was not good at dueling or anything else that required her to be quick on her feet. The Crotalus had absolutely no desire to put herself in a situation where she needed to go up against anything that was even remotely dangerous. Therefore, she only needed to do well enough to prove that she was not completely incompetent.
Lavender just hoped that they weren’t going to do boggarts. Hers happened to be a swarm of bees attacking because she was quite allergic to their stings. Even though she would know that if there was a swarm of bees in the exam room, it was probably a boggart, it was hard to make the little monsters funny. Unfortunately, the Riddikulus spell was one thing that often appeared on CATS.
Maybe she’d get lucky and at least get partial for credit for figuring it was a boggart and knowing what spell to use.
On the other hand, Lavender naturally wanted to keep going with Transfiguration as a Brockert not continuing the subject was pretty much unheard of. Which meant that she had to know the theory well enough so that she could continue it even though she was not at all worried about the practical part. In fact, she was generally pretty comfortable with the practical side of magic outside of Defense.
The test examiner began to speak, sounding as if he were as miserable as the students were, albeit in a different way.Once he had finished speaking, the exams were passed out and Lavender began the written portion of the test with the rest of the students, with the examiner periodically sneezing in the background.
Once the written portion was finished, and the students had used the bathroom and had snacks, she waited for her name to be called. Fortunately-or perhaps unfortunately-the Crotalus did not have to wait for very long given her placement towards the front of the alphabet. Pretty soon, she heard a stuffed up voice call out her name.
11
Lavender Brockert
It'll all be over soon
1504
0
5