Sorry for the late report, but with that [censored] DSL router failure and the long weekend in Germany (why do these things always mess up when there's 3 days without anyone in any office :-P) I didn't have much chance to get it out earlier. Okay, a little absence hurt things as well.

I apologize if anyone was waiting for Obelisk Core and/or Leadership courses to be graded - Kairus, the O:CORE teache,r had been affected by Isabel and just informed me today he finally had power back and I have no information about Dagger regarding Leadership. I graded all open courses in these two areas today though, so you should all have your shiny dossier additions (or fail mails).

Speaking of fails, in the advanced courses, there is ONE thing you can do to reduce your failure risk more than half:

Check the question points score and answer accordingly!!!

If a question is 10 points and you write two short sentences, you won't get a 10. If you've shown at least a basic understanding in those two sentences, you'll get a 4 or 5. Maybe a 7 if you really condensed information into a few words. But not a 10. And if you do that with a 10 and a 15 right next to each other as it is in the Leadership course, you've pretty much lost any chance to pass. Being 14 points down on a 50-point course means you're just 2 away from a fail.

A good rule of thumb is to write one sentence for each point you want to get from the question. Do this and you're on the safe side regarding length.

Also - if you are still waiting on a Test of Skill grade, I have not received the mail thanks to the connection error - so please re-send it. Everything that did arrive in my inbox is graded and processed and the SA has handed out a few Novice and Acolyte ranks in the process (no Protectors yet, I'm sure those will come in soon at the rate some new members take courses). Congratz to those who have earned their new ranks this way!