well...
...I guess it depends on your definition of "interesting." If you mean "challenging" I would say that both parts had their moments. My examiners held me to a very high standard and pressed me often during the orals. Sometimes I felt like I had unlimited answers but a few times I just ran out of responses and told them so. For example, one question had at least 6 possible answers, and Al and Denise pressed me for all of them. I dried up after 5.
The most difficult part of the orals is keeping it short. The tendency is to "show off" your knowledge, but the best strategy is to have a short, clear answer for a question, one that you would provide to a beginning caster, but also to be prepared for follow up questions. So, if someone asked me what I had to drink tonight I would say "a beer" rather than "well, I had a beer that is known as an "udder ale", and I'm not really sure why they would call it that except maybe as some rather strange inside joke, but anywyas it is a pale ale with a light amber hue, and I chose it over a Canadian because it was on sale and I'm rather cheap when it comes to beer..."--you get the picture.
I found the overhead casting section of the practical test the most challenging because I don't overhead cast much so I had to be thinking through the entire casting process, yet not make it look like I was thinking through the entire casting process. That section went very well for me but I was really stressing about it. So that was interesting.
The test is certainly challenging, and I know I wouldn't have passed if I hadn't prepared. It requires a master's level knowledge of two-handed casting, and if a candidate's skills are not first rate they can't expect to pass. For example, if I blew the smallest thing on a cast I was asked to do it again. So a slight tailing loop at the end of a cast was not acceptable. Even though at 100ft+ it might not be noticed by someone I'm teaching, my examiners picked it up and asked me to cast again. You need to be paying attention to what happens on every cast so that, if something goes wrong you can correct it on the next cast. If you can't do that, you won't pass the test. You don't get 1/2 dozen shots at it to get it right. Your examiner can allow (but they don't have to) up to 3 attempts to nail a task but if you need more than two consistently you likely won't make it. If you fail more than 6 tasks you can't pass (this means that in order to pass you need something like 88%).
Fred, I think your observations on the other thread were right on--this isn't an easy test, and even those considered experts can fail for any number of reasons: an off day, lack of preparation, fatigue, anxiety, a bad choice of tackle, bad weather conditions that make casting tough which leads to increased stress, and so on. The best advice I can give is to simply be prepared, and you can never be too prepared.