//------------------------------//
// Chapter 8: Placement Tests 
// Story: Harry Potter and the Prancing of Ponies 
// by The Guy Who Writes 
//------------------------------//

"Have a good day at school!"

Twilight's goodbye drew whispers from nearby pegasi. Silver couldn't tell if it was because of her frantic hoof-waving, or her species.

"I hope you do well on your placement tests!"

"Have a good day in the library," said Silver, ignoring the whispers and putting as much artificial cheer in his voice as he could. "I hope you read lots of books."

"I will! Good luck!"

It hadn't taken long for Silver to figure out that Twilight now viewed herself as his mother, or at least his guardian.

He wondered if it was the result of Mr. Book's typical meddling, or if it was just the way ponies were. You usually didn't see that sort of bonding with humans who aren't related by blood. Not this quickly, anyway. But he'd been seeing it left and right since he got here. Literally. As in, to his left there were two friends hugging each other with almost cartoonish affection, while on his right a father and son were doing the same. And despite the fact that it was summer, this was supposed to be the middle of the academic year for Cloudsdale. He'd have understood more if it was the first day of school, but the hugs should have been lost to routine by now. Maybe it had to do with ponies being herd animals.

He looked at the students filing through the halls, confirming for himself that none of them seemed like they had to think about directions, which you'd expect if the grade had just started.

It had been bad news, and he couldn't do anything about it. Since the school year in Cloudsdale was already well underway, he couldn't dedicate the entire summer to research. Pegasi had long winter breaks, apparently. According to a book Twilight had lent him, teenagers helped manage snowstorms back when there were fewer pegasi to go around. That got in the way of schooling, so Cloudsdale designed a schedule around that, just like earth pony schools designed their schedules around summer farm work. It's been done that way for so long now that nopony is keen on overhauling the whole thing.

Ding.

"Yes?" said a blue pegasus behind the administration desk whose nametag read Calm Breeze.

"My name is Silver Wing. I'm here for my placement tests?"

"Oh!" gasped the receptionist. "Of course. Go to the cloud stadium and ask for Coach Blitz."

"Coach? Not teacher?"

"Flight lessons are the most important, so they come first," she explained. "Next is your weather test, then social studies, then language, math, and science."

Flight lessons are considered more important than math, language, and science? Isn't that like saying gym class is more important than academics?

One question, one answer later, and he was walking down the corridor that led outside. The halls were now empty; the clock had struck 8:00 AM while he was in reception, starting school and getting rid of stragglers.

The cloud stadium turned out to be like a cross between an American Nascar field and a track-and-field sports stadium. There was an oval-shaped racing track on the outside and a large mass of fluffy clouds that went where the grassy field would have been on the other side of the mirror. Why did they need racing lanes on the 'ground' for flying ponies? Maybe galloping was a part of the curriculum too? 

The stadium wasn't empty. A group of ponies slightly older than him, all boys, were doing what looked like warm-up stretches. Silver saw a single adult in the stadium, walked to that adult, confirmed it was Coach Blitz, and started his placement test.

If his performance could be summed up in a single word, that word would be "failure".

An hour of broomstick-assisted practice, it turned out, was not enough to get him placed any higher than first grade. That was for six-and-seven-year-olds, so he had a lot of catching up to do.

If the test could be summed up in a different word from "failure", that word would be "jeers".

Watching the eleven-year-old fail basic flying maneuvers soon became the class's new favourite pastime. Thankfully, Silver had already trained himself (and a number of his Chaos soldiers on the other side of the mirror) how to deal with this sort of thing.

He'd had his peers all stand in a circle around a single person, looking in. They all jeered and sneered at the trainee, who shouted really basic and obvious truths, like "Twice two is four!" and "The sky is blue!" and "I have magic!" He'd had each and every one of his soldiers go through the process at least once, including himself.

He had called it "Anti-Conformity Training." When everyone is calling you stupid – even for saying something completely, blatantly, obviously true, like the sky is blue – it's hard not to just conform and go along with whatever they're saying. Even if they're saying something stupid, like the sky is green. It's a common trick used by advertisers, cult leaders, sophists, and authoritarian governments. 

With proper training, however, the Chaos Legion, and especially General Chaos, could resist that little psychological pitfall.

Right now, for example, it was easy not to conform to the thought that he was a hopeless case, a flightless pegasus, a no-flight-wonder, and some of the other names he'd been called. He could fly, just not all that well, or for very long.

At the same time, it was easy to conform to the thought that he was slow, sloppy, barely off the ground, Crashy McGee, and the rest of the names he'd been called. He is indeed a poor flier. At least right now. At least when it came to pegasus flight, not broomsticks.

He'd trained his mind to conform only to reality and ignore everything else...

...though he couldn't quite ignore the feeling of satisfaction that came when Coach Blitz reprimanded them and forced them to do extra routines for their "laziness". He did ignore the urge to smile and wave at the grumbling students, who didn't blame him for their extra work, but surely would if he provoked them.

He simply finished out his weather manipulation test as if he'd never noticed the older students in the first place, which went about as poorly as his flying test, only without the jeers.

His social studies test went better.

Because it wasn't an outright failure.

Probably.

He estimated a 60-70% score. He had spent an entire night thoroughly researching the basic history and culture of ponies, with a particularly strong motivation to remember that research. He'd also spent yesterday doing a more leisurely look through the library. It had taken a day for Twilight to get the paperwork sorted, with only a slight panic when she learned that the school year at Cloudsdale was already in session, unlike Ponyville's. Also, it was multiple choice or true/false, and about a fifth of the questions didn't even need background knowledge on pony society, just basic common sense.

As he penned his name at the top of the test, he noticed that hoof-writing, unlike walking and flying, was as easy as hand-writing. He suspected the Mirror was responsible, but he didn't know why writing should take higher "wish-fulfilment" priority than walking. Maybe the Mirror had prioritized spell-casting, and hoof-writing was a side-effect of the dexterity that allowed him to use a wand? Or maybe it was something else entirely.

Long story short: he could write quickly, accurately, and legibly, without the need to retrain muscle memory.

His language test, unlike the tests that had come before, was no failure at all. He suspected he only missed a few questions, though his essay responses could probably have been better. It did take him the entire hour-and-a-half testing period to get through the whole thing. He wasn't a slow reader, but he wasn't the fastest reader either. Certainly nowhere near his friend's or Mr. Book's speed.

His math test...







"Done," said Silver, putting the test on the desk.

"Done?" echoed the teacher. "It's only been..." she checked the wall clock. "An hour."

"Yup," Silver shrugged. "It wasn't that hard."

"Wasn't hard? My dear, that test goes all the way up to twelfth grade."

"It doesn't test up to calculus," said Silver, causing the teacher's eyes to widen slightly. "Or even pre-calculus. So it didn't ask anything I didn't know how to do."

"I'm sure it didn't, dear."

Silver sighed. When she switched to that overly kind voice, it was easy to tell she thought he was lying. There wasn't anything to do but wait for that reasonable assumption to be proven wrong.

"Why don't you give me a few minutes to grade this? There are some books you can read on the shelf over there."

Only a few minutes? Ah. Right. Multiple choice.

"Okay."

A few minutes later...

"Superintendent Flight?" the teacher asked into a telephone that looked like it belonged to the 1950s, despite the fact that it was wireless. "Could you come to my classroom?"

Twenty minutes later...

"Silver Wing?" said a male voice. "Could you come over here?"

"Sure," Silver shrugged.

He walked calmly up to the desk, which until that moment had been hosting a 'private' meeting between teacher and superintendent, with the 'privacy' being maintained by whispers. In other words, it hadn't been very private.

"What is it?" he asked, even though he already knew what it was about.

"There isn't a polite way to put this," the superintendent said hesitantly, "but I have to ask. Did you cheat on this test?"

"No," said Silver Wing. "I would have shown my work, but it was easy enough to do in my head."

"Would you mind taking a different test, just so we can be sure?"

"I wouldn't mind," he shrugged, "but don't I still have to take my science test? That's scheduled to start soon, isn't it?"

"I didn't mean today," said Flight. "When you come in for your first official day of school, we'll have you take another test instead of going to math class. Or we could schedule it sooner than that."

"Okay," said Silver Wing.

Something similar happened with his science test, except this time...







"I don't understand it," said Professor Feather Weight. "He did better than any student I've ever seen. And we normally give the second half of this test to students who are about to graduate. He's beyond seven years above his age in Science."

"And in Math," sighed Superintendent Flight. "And in Language, he's six years ahead. In Social Studies he's kind of close to his peers, but his knowledge is all over the place. He knows about thestrals, but not Hearth's Warming. And in his Flight and Weather classes, he's worse than any pegasus Coach Blitz has ever seen."

"In fact," continued Feather, focused more on the test than on his boss, "some of these are better than the correct answers."

"Uh... really?"

"Yes."

"How?"

Professor Feather pointed to the paper on the desk. "Look at question seven."

Two students are testing how heat effects the speed of water evaporation. The first student sets up a beaker filled with water and heats the water to 90 degrees, then measures how long it takes for the water to fully evaporate. The second student sets up two beakers, one at room temperature, the other at 85 degrees, and measures how long the water in each beaker takes to fully evaporate. Which student had the batter experimental set-up, and why?

"What about it?" Flight asked when he was done reading.

"His answer..." Professor Feather trailed off. "I mean, the first two paragraphs are exactly what you'd expect from a typical correct answer. He mentions control groups and isolated variables. He says that the second experiment had the better design, despite the higher temperature in the first. But he crammed that into a very small part of the answer space, then wrote 'Now that I got the boring part out of the way, here's everything else they did wrong.' Then he mentions everything that affects evaporation. Both students neglected to take note of the air's humidity. They didn't account for light hitting the beakers, especially sunlight. Or the surface area, depth, and volume of the water within the beakers. The list just goes on and on. Then he proceeded to point out how even if one of the students had taken all those factors into account, it wouldn't have mattered anyway because they didn't gather enough data for statistical significance. And he did this for every open-ended question."

"So... he over-answered?"

"No, he answered. The questions are open-ended for a reason."

Flight rubbed his forehead with his hooves. "So you're saying he completely tested out of Science."

"I'm saying he could teach Science," said Feather. "He turned in this test in fifty-five minutes. Even if he spent all his time on the open answer questions, that’s eleven minutes per question at most. But if he spent about half his time on the multiple choice, that’s five minutes per question. I don’t think a Canterlot University professor could have done this, even if they had twice the time. Some of his answers mention things I never would have thought to consider. And one of his answers, on the other question about experimental design..." the proctor trailed off. "Let's just say I'll be showing it to a friend at Manehattan Tech."

Flight sighed heavily, then said, "One moment." He stood, walked over to the door, said "Silver Wing?", made a beckoning gesture with his head, then came back and sat down.

Soon enough, the colt who'd aced his test was sitting before the two adults, looking wary and weary. "Am I going to have to take two tests to prove I didn't cheat?"

Feather Weight raised an eyebrow at Superintendent Flight, who shook his head. "No. And I think we can forgo the math one too."

"Oh?" said Silver, sounding relieved. "That's good."

"Silver..."

"Yes?"

"Could you explain how you performed so well on your academics, but so poorly on your physicals?"

The colt shrugged. "I'm a scholar at heart."

"I can see that," said Flight. "But that usually doesn't come at the complete expense of simple flying maneuvers." A memory of something said earlier that day came to mind. "I'm reluctant to repeat this, but Coach Blitz says he's seen newborns who are better fliers than you. But Blitz also said you were completely comfortable in the air, even if you couldn't do much when you were up there."

Silver shrugged again. "What can I say? I grew up on the ground. No Pegasi to learn from and all that. But when I'm above a cloud, there isn't really much to worry about from crashing. Especially with that nice fluffy field beneath me. Soft cushioning takes most of the fear away."

(It was the best excuse he'd been able to come up with. It wasn't like he could say 'I was the best broomstick flyer in my class'.)

"So... am I going to be sitting through lectures that 'teach' me things I already know? Or can I just take classes on the stuff I actually haven't learned yet?" 

There was a pause in the office.

"What do you mean?" asked Flight.

"Can I only show up for flying and weather lessons and go home after that? Could I just spend all day catching up on my flying? Normally- well, I guess, once upon a time, tutors would teach me at my full learning speed. I can do well in a normal class environment, but only when the educators are really good. I've had bad experiences with sub-par public school teachers. And even academically stellar teachers."

Flight frowned. "Such as?" 

"Like that time a teacher tried to correct my already-correct answer to a maths problem, we got into an argument, and it turned out that she didn't even know what a logarithm was. And then there's that time a master... um, chemist, singled me out and tried to bully me on my first day of classes because I reminded him of someone he didn't like. I don't want a repeat of that. And to be honest, I also don't want to be forced to sit in a class which won't do anything for me, even if the teacher is good enough for the other students."

Flight's discomfort seemed to grow. He and Feather Weight exchanged glances.

It went unsaid that Twilight Sparkle, Wielder of the Element of Magic and personal student to Princess Celestia, was currently in charge of this colt. She would not be pleased if they held him back in any way.

But Twilight Sparkle also wouldn't be pleased if her ward was given no opportunities to bond with colts and fillies his age. Sports would normally be the answer, but they all involved flight or weather in some way or another and Silver could barely get off the ground. Even if his air mobility was brought up to par, his teammates would resent him for dragging them down and being the weakest link.

Then, Flight's face lit up. "I've got it! Mr. Wing, how about-"

"Mr. Silver," Silver Wing corrected. "Oh. I'm sorry. I shouldn't have interrupted."

"Now, it's alright. Best to clear that up now, not later." Flight cleared his throat. "Mr. Silver, academics and physical training aren't the only classes our students take. There's also art, music, gym, and library. One for each day of the week, except Friday, which is a free day. You shouldn't be much further ahead in creative classes. And even if you are, it shouldn't matter. They're just for fun."

"I'm alright with taking those," said Silver Wing. "But how is gym any different from flight class?"

"It covers everything except flying."

Silver didn't say anything, but his expression asked for elaboration.

"You know, swimming, galloping, climbing, dancing, and all the other things that Earth Ponies and Unicorns can do."

"Ah," said Silver. "Interesting. And what about my flight and weather classes? Am I going to be put with the first-graders?"

The smile of the superintendent widened, and he shook his head. "A tutor's going to teach you until you're all caught up. "

"Sounds good," said Silver. "Who's going to tutor me?"

Flight Formation's smile was as wide as the Feather Weight had ever seen it, and he suddenly knew why his boss was so excited, even before he said-

"A retired Wonderbolt."

Contrary to expectations, the young pegasus did not whoop for joy, run around in little circles, or even give a single pronk. In fact, the colt barely reacted at all.

"A retired Wonderbolt..." Silver repeated, a slight frown on his face. He looked at the superintendent with narrowed eyes. "You'll be my tutor?"

"Yes!" declared Flight, then posed dramatically. "You know your stuff. Captain Flight Formation takes the stage one last time to train his newest recruit! I'm glad I'm not completely forgotten."

Silver Wing's lips were twitching. "Actually, sorry, I have no idea who you are."

"What?!" Flight Formation fumed. "Then how'd you know I was a Wonderbolt?" 

Silver Wing's lips twitched even more. "I inferred you were talking about yourself from your expression," said the colt. "It kind of gave it away."

Flight Formation grumbled something, and Feather was sure that he saw an embarrassed blush for a second there. "Well, er, right. Yes."

"Will you have time for that?" Silver asked politely. "You're the school's superintendent, right?"

"Oh, I'll have plenty of time," said Flight Formation. "I might work for eight hours a day, but I usually get my daily tasks done in an hour or two."

"Then why be here for eight?"

"Because a big part of my job is to be here," said Flight Formation. "For unexpected situations that take a cool head to work out. Like this one."

"Ah. Got it. So... what happens now?"

"I'll send your schedule to Twilight Sparkle once it's written, along with the test results. And since you live in a library, I'll also give you a list of books you might want to read. You can't learn how to fly from a book, but you can learn plenty about diet, stretching routines, cold showers, and all the other things that are helpful to know."