Headmaster Brockert
June 09, 2018 3:25 PM
CATS by Headmaster Brockert
It was that time of the year again at Sonora. The time of the year when the fifth years took their CATS exams. It was most likely an incredible source of stress for the lot of them , but at least it would all be over soon...for two years until they had to sit for their RATS.Most likely adding to a student's stress was the possibility of having Nanette Langdon as an examiner. With her tight bun, sharp features and cold eyes, her face looked as if it had never seen a smile and with a personality to match her looks it wasn't likely that students who had the misfortune to get her as their examiner would be smiling much for awhile either.
On the other hand, David Weatherby was very much a desired examiner as he tended to be the most fair of them all. Not to mention that despite his age, most of the female students found him pleasing to look at with his striking green eyes, lean figure and salt and pepper hair.
While the female students had David Weatherby to look at, the males had Aurora Septentrion. She had beautiful long blonde hair and gave off a warm and friendly vibe. Yet, she took her job quite seriously and was no pushover.
That role was filled by Roland Ashburn. He was a friendly sort, eager to be liked and as such, tended to pass most students. While Mr. Weatherby was surely most people's favorite examiner, to those who were more anxious, less academically inclined or more unscrupulous, he most likely held a certain appeal.
Once the fifth years had assembled for their morning theoretical exams, Ms. Langdon addressed them as anti-cheating quills were handed out along with the testing materials. "There will be no cheating and anyone who is caught doing so will be asked to leave and automatically fail their exams. If you finish early, sit quietly so as not to disturb anyone else."
Practical exams were to be in the afternoon. All students would be called up to perform their tasks and then were free to go.
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Headmaster Brockert
CATS
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Headmaster Brockert
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Zevalyn Ives, Aladren
July 11, 2018 3:43 PM
The Waterfalls and the Written Exam by Zevalyn Ives, Aladren
The waterfalls of the Cascade Hall were always silent. They had to be. That much water crashing down in an enclosed space would make mealtime conversation of any kind impossible. Also, they were easier to ignore and pretend they were nothing more than a cool visual effect instead of a horrifying example of wizardkind’s wasteful apathy toward the desert environment that surrounded the school where water was such a scarcity.Today, however, the silence was bothering her as it never had before. Probably because everything else was silent, too, except for the sounds of quills scratching again the test parchment. The Hall felt eerie being so quiet.
Also, she couldn’t remember the incantation for turning a parsnip into a hat, and glaring at the waterfalls was as good a way to express her frustration with her memory lapse as anything else. After a few more moments of scowling and wracking her brain, she shook her head. Move on, come back to it later, she told herself, remembering the test taking tips that recommended not spending too much time on any one question.
The next several answers came to her easily, and the sixth she knew she’d never known so she tossed down a random answer hoping for a lucky guess or partial credit and carried on. As she was writing a short essay about animate to inanimate tranfigurations and how they differed from inanimate to animate, she abruptly remembered how to transfigure a parsnip into a hat and hurried to find that blank question before she forgot again.
Eventually she finished, including the other questions she’d skipped in the interest of time management, and she closed her test pamphlet with four minutes to spare. She thought she did well. Not 100% - tests like this did not expect people to get 100% even if you did all the supplemental reading - but definitely at least an E if not a solid O. Honestly, she’d expected it to be worse after all the hype the teachers gave it.
She had always been a good test taker though, so she supposed there were still the practicals for that.
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Zevalyn Ives, Aladren
The Waterfalls and the Written Exam
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Zevalyn Ives, Aladren
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