Several students failed in casting specific spells. Some succeeded on second tries, others tried other more creative, less brute force approaches. Both of those paths have merit, but in dangerous, high stress combat or near combat situations casting a spell which you are insufficiently proficient with is often worse than casting nothing at all. Clearly they felt pressure to push beyond their comfort zones in spell choice. Not knowing exactly what instructions they were given I can't say whether I think those were at fault or if the students simply responded poorly to the high stress situation with physical impediments (I saw at least one failed cast that was clearly due to wand hand shaking so badly from the cold). All of my comments would be on that theme.
Since his arrival here, each year in Defence Professor Raz has lectured strenuously on proper spell choice and the incredible amount of repetitive practice it takes to make the proper response instinctual. You don't get the necessary level instinctual response without it. For example fifth years just haven't cast the Cardinals enough to make them a good choice in anything other than a pure learning environment. Maybe in the future he could be brought in before such events to give a short lecture on the topic tailored to the tasks at hand?
I'm sorry to have displayed poor word choice in public. I must only plead that homonyms make things hard and I was working without my normal support of a dictionary to check out those sorts of things. I know 'peel' was there on the page and I stared at it. Then I stared at 'peel' some more and just couldn't decide if 'peal' or 'peel' was more fit. Once I start looking at things like that they turn 'round and 'round in my head 'till I don't know if they look better coming or going and decide to pick up the first choice. In the end that's a generous way of saying it really is breast best if I work with a dictionary when witting up potion assays or other written essays.
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Date: 2013-01-28 02:04 am (UTC)Since his arrival here, each year in Defence Professor Raz has lectured strenuously on proper spell choice and the incredible amount of repetitive practice it takes to make the proper response instinctual. You don't get the necessary level instinctual response without it. For example fifth years just haven't cast the Cardinals enough to make them a good choice in anything other than a pure learning environment. Maybe in the future he could be brought in before such events to give a short lecture on the topic tailored to the tasks at hand?
I'm sorry to have displayed poor word choice in public. I must only plead that homonyms make things hard and I was working without my normal support of a dictionary to check out those sorts of things. I know 'peel' was there on the page and I stared at it. Then I stared at 'peel' some more and just couldn't decide if 'peal' or 'peel' was more fit. Once I start looking at things like that they turn 'round and 'round in my head 'till I don't know if they look better coming or going and decide to pick up the first choice. In the end that's a generous way of saying it really is
breastbest if I work with a dictionary when witting up potion assays or other written essays.