Chapter 199: Chapter 199: The Elective Equivalent of a Required Subject (Edited)
To which courses do you want to apply? This is a good question.
The average grade depends on one's effort, but it often takes some skill to get close to a four. Some professors are sick in the head, and it's hard to fail 30% of your students, so giving them an A is like taking a life, so avoid their classes.
Tom was sure that if Potions were an elective, Professor Snape would be the least busy teacher in the school, with Professor Binns, who taught History of Magic, being the second least busy. But if Tom kept up with his exams, he would probably be third.
Hermione studied the list of new courses carefully, noting them down and ticking them off. She had consulted several seniors and had a general idea of the new curriculum.
Tom thought for a moment, "I'll definitely take Divination and Arithmancy, and I'll also take Care of Magical Creatures and Ancient Runes."
Tom felt that he lacked effective divination methods at the moment, so some professional knowledge of divination was necessary. And Tom thought that Professor Trelawney might have some notes from her ancestor Cassandra Trelawney or something that he thought he could borrow.
The Care of Magical Creatures class, which would help Tom learn about the various magical creatures, was also necessary to gain some knowledge. As for Ancient Runes, it was for interest. Tom thought it wouldn't hurt to know some of the ancient runes of wizards, even if they were just "words" now.
"What do you think of Muggle studies?" Hermione nodded, noting that Tom had chosen four of the five classes, except Muggle Studies.
Tom: ...
"I'm a Muggle! Why would I have to take a class like this? Isn't this class for free credit?" Tom was rather dismissive of the class. Mr. Arthur, as an employee of the Department Against the Misuse of Muggle Objects, must have taken the class, but he doesn't even know how to make a phone call or take the subway!
What the hell was this class teaching? what's the point? It's a waste of time. The proper use of this class would be to focus on teaching young wizards how to dress like Muggles at certain times of the week, and then taking them on "spring outings" and "walks" to really get them into the Muggle world, instead of looking at textbooks from over a decade ago and making assumptions about the Muggle world.
"But, I'm curious what the Muggle world is like from a wizard's point of view, so why don't we take that class too?" said Hermione.
"Also?"
"Yes! Also!" Hermione picked up her quill and signed all the subjects with ease.
The advice she had received from the seniors was to choose their classes based on their plans for the future. If she wanted to work in a job with a strong Muggle connection, such as the Incident Reversal Team and the Department Against the Misuse of Muggle Objects, then Muggle Studies was the course to take, as the N.E.W.T. certificate was required to apply for the position. If the chosen career involves the outdoors, it is best to take the Care of Magical Creatures course. If the career involves archaeology, then ancient runes such as divination and arithmetic are required.
Despite this advice, Hermione had her own ideas, and she wanted to do it all! She wasn't one to chew more than she could chew, but because she needed to make her own judgments.
She felt she had to be careful with each course, as it involved a future career choice, and she couldn't rely on the words of seniors, she wanted to take a year's worth of classes herself before making her choice.
"You...," Tom said as he watched Hermione cross off five classes at once: that would mean twelve classes a term for Hermione.
"It's going to be exhausting."
"No, I'll be fine with less sleep, are you sure you don't want to take Muggle Studies?" Hermione looked up expectantly, "This way, if there's a team task, we can team up too, and we don't have to go to the trouble of finding a reliable teammate.
With group work, sometimes it's more nerve-wracking to have a stupid partner than to do it alone.
Of course, Hermione could work alone on all the tasks the teachers gave her, but... if she could do it with Tom, why not?
"Besides, it'll be a lot easier for me if you help me. Of course, it's fine if you don't want to, I can work with someone else..."
Tom looked at Hermione's eyes, which seemed to be talking, and decided it was almost too good a request to turn down, so his hand followed Hermione uncontrollably as he ticked five boxes on the application form.
"Actually..." he said haltingly after signing off, "There's no need for you to take Divination, I don't think you and Professor Trelawney get along very well. It's a class that really requires talent."
"But you signed up for it too!".
"Because I have a real talent for Divination." said Tom weakly, as if remembering something unpleasant.
Hermione: ???
"Then make a prophecy for me!" She said with an angry.
"I predict that you will leave Muggle Studies and Divination after third year" Tom said.
"Hmph!" Hermione rolled her eyes, but at the same time made up her mind to never drop those two classes and annoy Tom. Hermione believed there was no class she couldn't attend.
As she put away her list, she glanced into Tom's office and was drawn to the piles of parchment.
"What are these?" Hermione walked over to the pile of parchments, resisted the urge to grab them, and turned to Tom to ask.
"The exams for after Easter."
Hermione's look became complex for a moment, she really was super anxious to see him! Tom sensed Hermione's desire and was amused.
Hermione looked at the papers and felt conflicted: she didn't want Tom to give her the answers to the exam, she just wanted to do the series of questions in advance.
The exams, for Hermione, were a deadly temptation. Exams, the test of her learning, were like a lottery prize, and she was obsessed, addicted, and unable to stop.
She looked at Tom with a longing look in her eyes, waiting for him to invite her to take an "internal" test, to see if the difficulty was up to par, if there were any controversial questions, and to test herself and see if there were any problems in her work.
But it was as if Tom had suddenly gone blind, unable to see what was in Hermione's mind and ignoring her eyes. Hermione was a little anxious, hesitated for a while and finally said in a voice no louder than a gnat's, "That paper... can I take it and do it?"
Tom looked up, "What did you say? I didn't hear you."
Hermione's face flushed instantly, coloring her pale cheeks with a hint of red, and she raised her voice, "I, I want to...do that test set..."
"Oh-" Tom interrupted, "Is that the test set?"
Hermione nodded.
"Well, why should I give you this test set?"
Chapter 200: Chapter 200: Mock exams prior to the exam (Edited)
"I... I can help you with the exam questions..." she said sheepishly.
Tom sketched a wicked grin, "Then say after me: I want your exam. Say it and I'll give you the exam."
"I... want your...exam!"
When she finished, she looked at Tom, only to find him looking at her with a smirk, Hermione was a little exasperated, "You're teasing me again! I..."
"Yes, it's great fun to play tricks on Granger!" admitted Tom frankly.
The reason Hermione was so squeamish was essentially because it was a foolproof trap to get an exam from a professor. As a good student trying to follow school rules, such behavior was too "depraved" in her own eyes.
But Tom gave the exams to Hermione before she could pull out her wand and give him a curse.
After such a "competition", Tom regained the lead in the competition between the two: before Hermione took advantage of his weakness and was "abused" madly, now he took the opportunity to recover.
With paper in hand, Hermione was like a cat on a full stomach, ignoring Tom and concentrating on her exam. It didn't take her long to finish the questions. When she finished the exam, Hermione kicked Tom and handed it to him.
"Let's see your grade," Tom said as he took the exam from Hermione's hand with the ink still on it, scanned it and was a little surprised to see that Hermione got a perfect grade.
"That's good!" exclaimed Tom, the exam was still twenty questions of indeterminate choice, it wasn't hard to pick the right answer, the hard part was picking them all.
"That's it!" Hermione took the papers happily, as if she had achieved something great.
The sun streamed in through the window and shone on her exam paper, making the surface of the dried ink glisten.
...
The classroom was filled with the rustle of quills on the exam.
The ink on the exam shone brightly. Percy put down the pen, relieved.
"That's a lot of questions today." He thought to himself. Sunlight streamed in through the classroom window and hit his modest desk, the same one used for the O.W.L. exam, which Tom had copied almost exactly for the sake of authenticity. From space to time, from parchment to pen, it was exactly the same.
Percy glanced at his own exam to make sure he hadn't made any low-level mistakes. There were still a few questions he wasn't sure about, but he was careful to leave them blank and not make up a single option. Tom had said that there might be a change in the format of the exam this year, and that the Magic Examination Board had changed the format of the questions to include multiple choice questions that deduct points. It's best to skip questions you don't know.
After reading his own exam, Percy looked at Wood, who was sitting near him. Wood, red-faced, was writing furiously, the only thing stopping him was dipping his quill in the ink.
Clang! With a crisp sound, Wood's face instantly turned ashen.
"Exam time, candidates, put down your quills and stop answering questions." Tom tapped the hourglass on the table, emitting a crisp sound.
The young wizards stopped their quills and folded up their exam papers and placed it on the corner of the table.
With a wave of his wand, Tom deftly used the Levitating Charm to collect the exams from the young wizards' classroom.
Tom pulled out his enhanced automatic marking machine, slipped in the exam scrolls, and the alchemy machine quickly graded the exams. During the waiting period for the results to come out, the atmosphere in the classroom was even more tense than it had been during the test
Cassandra narrowed her eyes, noticing that the professor's alchemy machine seemed to have become more advanced, now capable of marking short answer questions!
Naturally, not to mention Tom's growing skill in alchemy, the machine had been manipulated by Dumbledore. Not to mention that it worked quite well.... Although it sometimes made the mistake of artificially slowing down, it was still incredibly efficient at correcting assignments.
The principle is not too difficult: just type in some keywords for the short answer questions before the test, and then type in the standard answers, which the machine will refer to in order to grade the exams and give the final score. It's not as accurate, but at least it's fast. Also, in a mock exam, the score is just a reference. It's a matter of adjusting and getting used to the test.
Tom handed out the corrected scrolls, along with the reference answers.
"Correct them yourselves, and if you don't understand something, discuss it amongst yourselves."
At these words, there was a murmur in the classroom.
"Ah! I shouldn't have taken so long!" cried Wood, holding his head, looking extremely annoyed, "I didn't have time to read the last big question!"
Percy glanced at the exam, the questions were not graded in difficulty, the last one on the other hand was easy.
"Ah, just give me five minutes!". Wood noticed the same thing.
"If you had flipped through the exam when you received it, you wouldn't have made such a low-level mistake," said Cassandra, sitting diagonally across from Wood, in an arrogant tone. Wood's voice was loud enough to be heard throughout the classroom, and Cassandra, who was sitting diagonally across from him, could hear it perfectly.
"Of course, I can sympathize with your lack of perspective."
As condescending as ever, but rightly so, Wood could only lower his head and sulk.
After nearly half an hour of discussion, the young wizards solved their problems internally with the help of the referenced answers.
"Very well, that concludes this mock exam. There are only a few days left until the O.W.L., so I wish you all the best of luck with the exams." Tom bowed to the students, and the students applauded as well.
You can all have different careers, some of you want to go to the Ministry of Magic, some of you can become a Quidditch player, some students can go on to inherit the family business," Tom paused, sweeping his eyes over Cassandra, "And, of course, some of you can open a magic store..."
"Whatever you choose to be, I hope that the skills I have taught you this academic year will help you, and I hope more than anything that you will develop the ability to think independently and learn on your own throughout the year."
A student burst out laughing, "Professor, that sounds like a valedictory speech!".
The classroom was filled with happiness. As far as the students were concerned, Professor Lockhart was doing a great job, so how could he not teach next year? And the curse? Professor Lockhart's best skill was breaking curses!
"Indeed, at the end of this academic year, I will be resigning my position in Defense Against the Dark Arts."
The class was silent for a moment.
"Professor, is it because of the curse?" Said the boy who had just spoken bitterly, for the young wizards at Hogwarts, a new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher was like opening a lottery. This time, they had gotten a slightly more reliable teacher, but they were still leaving after a year of teaching!
How could they accept him?!
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