"Charming" is, in a word, charming. We're the worst witch-in-training ever, and, while waiting alone to take our magic exam, we've managed to conjure up a tornado that utterly wrecked the examination room. So we've got to clean things up before our examiner arrives, or the exam itself will be the least of our worries.
So, immediately we've got an endearing underdog for a protagonist, and we've got a few clearly indicated goals. Looking around, we can see exactly what needs to be fixed. And we've got a lovely little narrative where it's the act of cleaning up our own mess that gains us the knowledge and confidence necessary to take the exam at all. Classic.
I encountered one bug. At one point, I needed to perform a spell with a specific lit candle in my possession. As it turned out, I needed all the candles in my possession and unlit (or possibly just one or two of the other candles; I didn't test this exhaustively) or it wouldn't work. I'd approached this by taking just the one candle I needed, and everything said that this was the candle I needed, but the thing simply wouldn't work. But I fancy that this will have been fixed by the end of the IFcomp.
I initially found it annoying to have to consult four different books about things, until I discovered that I didn't actually have to specify which book I wanted to consult: "Read topic" would automatically pick whichever book contained that topic, which made things much easier.
There's little else to criticise, really. This is basically a pretty solidly constructed, well-designed entry with a familiar, comfortable flavour. I call it two eggs over-easy with bacon and a side of toast and coffee. Except for a bit of singe on the toast, it's pretty much everything you'd expect in a good breakfast.