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Visal ’21 has had a fantastic journey so far in high school. Having just turned 14, he was thrilled to learn he earned a composite score of 35 in his recent ACT test. The maximum is 36!

By Grade 6, Visal was reaching mastery in all subjects and, when challenged with advanced content, he proved he could do as well as students much older than he is. That’s why, despite being the youngest in his class, Visal skipped a year and enrolled in Grade 8 a year early. As the youngest ever high school student with the highest ever ACT score, Visal deserves congratulations for his hard work and achievements. He shares his reflections here on the great benefits of practice, practice, practice.

As a Grade 10 student, I always used to look for shortcuts in order to achieve my goals. I still do today, although somewhat less than before. However, I realized a while back that the true path to success has no shortcuts. We must put in hard work and effort in order to reach our limits and exceed our expectations. This story is one that I experienced and it taught me to embrace hard work and to have grit in order to succeed. This experience was with my ACT test.

I was told that the ACT is a very important test. It is a test result that many universities will look at when they review my application. I felt that I needed to do well on this test so I prepared for it by practicing as much as possible. Thankfully, all of my teachers were willing to help by providing me with a lot of practice packets. My class had an ACT preparation class with Ms. Fraser-King, our college counselor, and she gave us a handbook full of strategies to succeed along with two packets full of practice questions. Prior to the test, my class had an ACT practice session with Mr. Charles, a college counselor based in Vietnam, who spent an afternoon giving us a lot of helpful tips for the ACT English. He advised us that the ACT is mostly a reading test. I did a lot of ACT English practice with my writing and language arts teacher and ACT reading practice with my literature teacher. Ms. Linton, my honors chemistry teacher, allotted some of her class time in order to allow us to practice for the ACT science section. Mr. Sokcha, my geometry and precalculus teacher, devoted some of his classes to ACT math practice and spent some of his time helping to answer our questions. I personally found old practice tests online and reviewed them. I spent hours on weekends practicing my reading skills and did lots of research on specific subjects to be prepared for the ACT math section.

One very important tool that I used was Albert, a website designed to help prepare for tests. I spent many hours practicing reading and I believed that it had helped me with my reading test. Albert provided me with some background on the complexity of the test questions and the more practice I did, the better prepared I felt. All of that practice made me feel comfortable and confident on test day and added to a good night’s sleep, I was able to ignore everything except the test.

On test day, I arrived as rested as I could be and although I was nervous, my friends helped calm me down. I tried to push everything out of my mind except for all the tips and strategies for the ACT. Once the test had started, I felt increasingly confident about the ACT English section because it was the easiest one, in my opinion. However, on the math section, my self-esteem and confidence began to ebb away slowly. It was way harder than expected and I was beginning to lose my concentration. After a short break, I felt slightly better but was overwhelmed by the reading. It was definitely the hardest one because the texts were complicated. The science test was mostly reading with a few extra data charts and graphs. At least I felt that my science skills were pretty good so I didn’t worry as much. The writing test was better than the reading or science tests because I had practiced persuasive writing in quarter one already. At the end of the test, I was unsure of how I had done, so I could not wait for the results because I wanted to see my score.

Once I saw the test scores, the first thing that came to my mind was that I didn’t do so badly after all. Then, it sunk in that it was a new school record, I had a score of 35! The maximum is 36! My friends crowded around me and congratulated me on such an awesome score. Throughout the day, many teachers came to congratulate me and felt proud of myself. Once I told my parents, they were really happy because it meant that during all that time I spent on my computer, I wasn’t as lost in the world of video games as they thought.

One tip that I would give to others who will take the ACT is to read as much as possible. Also, practice as much as possible so that the test doesn’t take you by surprise. There really is no secret to success. It all depends on how much you are willing to give and how much you want to succeed. Practicing and putting in the hard work in order to attain our goals are the roads to success. Ability doesn’t really matter if you don’t work hard. Also, remember that there are people here who are absolutely willing to help you out. Please, don’t be afraid to ask for help.

I would like to thank all of my teachers for giving up their time to help push me to success. Personally, I am relieved and proud. However, I must take the ACT again next year. Beating or maintaining my score will be a very challenging task, but I am happy to say that I have already begun to practice for it.

Thanks to Ms. Fraser-King and teachers for organizing student preparation for the ACT test and congratulations to Visal on your outstanding result.