Working hard for the perfect score
By Ariana Sayeed
For many of us, achieving a perfect score on the ACT is something we could only dream of, but for junior Lily Jiang, it’s a reality.
The ACT is a test which many juniors and seniors take to attain the scores they want to achieve to send to colleges they apply to. It consists of four timed sections: math, English, writing, and science.
To achieve a score in the high score requires much stamina and persevere, but to achieve a high score is rare, much less on the first try.
Recently, two Jenks students achieved perfect scores. Jiang, one of the two, said she wasmoderately surprised when she had gotten her scores. When I had asked what she had expected, she
responded: “It was honestly a fifty-fifty. I believed that I would get a 34 or 35 at least, but I also believed that a 36 was something I could get.”
To say that she could get a 34 or 35, at least, must have meant that Jiang had a lot of confidence, so I asked her what made her believe that she could score so high.
“I had studied a lot for the two weeks before the exam, to the point where I was taking a practice test at least every day. I had also bought some prep books and had taken a free ACT course. Iwould say that helped me the most, even boosting my score five or six points from my original score. So,
yeah, I would say I spent a lot of time behind this test.”
Jiang had taken the test over the summer. Saying that she had not spent every single second behind the test, I asked her what she had done to relax. She responded that she did arts and crafts, played music on her viola, liked to read, and of course watch TV. It was obvious Jiang was a normal
student who was like any other high-school student: she loved to have fun and enjoy life.
This is not to say of course that she isn’t a brilliant student. At school, Jiang is taking advanced classes such as AP Physics C and Advanced Differential Equations. She also spends a lot of time behind activities outside of school as well. As the sports and concessions Board Member of the Jenks Key Club,
she can be found volunteering at Asbury Church and various other events held. She is also an active member in Odyssey of the Mind and is in Chamber Orchestra.
By getting the ACT over with, “it was a burden off [her] shoulders”, Jiang said with apparent relief on her face. She now plans to focus on scoring well on other standardized tests such as AP tests, the SAT, and others. She hopes to maintain a 4.0 GPA and become valedictorian. Hoping to become an engineer one day, she said that she wanted to get into a good college, tossing names like Georgia Tech and Stanford into the mix.
At the rate she was going, there was no doubt that she wouldn’t have a hard time with achieving her goals. On a final note, I asked her what advice she had to give to others that had wanted to attain good ACT scores and build up their resumes.
“Honestly, it depends on the person and on what score they want to achieve. But in the end, find the best way for you personally. Don’t procrastinate. I know it’s hard because even I do it, but learn to manage your time. And find a balance in what you like to enjoy. I personally would not make a commitment to something unless I actually enjoyed it.”
With those words, we can only hope to achieve results like the ones Jiang did.