Thanh HoaNguyen Khuong Duy, 17 years old, scored 1.590/1.600 on the SAT by practicing at least two questions every day for nearly a year.
Khuong Duy, an 11th grade English student at Lam Son High School for the Gifted, Thanh Hoa, received near-perfect SAT results in the mid-March exam. She scored 3 points in Math and 800/790 in Reading and Writing.
"I'm quite sorry for making a mistake in choosing words appropriate to the context in the Reading and Writing section," Duy said. This is also the part of the exam that Duy was worried about from the beginning because there are often questions about methods of conducting scientific research.
SAT (Scholastic Aptitude Test) is a competency assessment test commonly used in American university admission. The test includes 54 Reading and Writing questions, completed in 64 minutes, and 44 Math questions, completed in 70 minutes. Each section is scored on a scale of 800.
According to College Board, the exam organizer, Duy's score is in the top 1% of SAT scores worldwide. The average score of all 12th graders taking this test over the past three years is 1.175.
[Khuong Duy, 11th grade English student, Lam Son High School for the Gifted, Thanh Hoa. Image: Characters provided
Having scored more than 1.500 points in the exam last August, this time, Duy is not too worried, setting a goal of reaching 8. Comparing the results with my friends after the exam, seeing that there was only one question wrong, I felt secure that I would get a high score.
Khuong Duy admits that he has strengths in the Math section. As long as he carefully reads the data of the test, he will definitely get it right. The exam included middle school math knowledge, grade 10 and part of grade 11. It was not difficult for me to win all 800 points.
During review time, male students mainly search for topics on open sources such as Khan Academy, College Board, Princeton, Cracksat... Every day, he takes advantage of breaks in class and evening study hours at home to do at least two Complete topic, to get used to the format. If you do something wrong, write down the details so you don't repeat it.
Last year, right before his first SAT test, Duy also scored 8.0 in IETLS. In particular, Reading and Listening skills achieved perfect scores, Writing 7.5 and Speaking 6.5. Comparing the reading comprehension section of the two tests, I think that although the test format is different, both require candidates to find important keywords to answer correctly.
Ms. Le Linh Huong, English teacher, homeroom of class 11 English 1, Lam Son High School for the Gifted, was proud when her "can say it can do" student achieved high results in both exams.
"This is a result worthy of the determination and effort she put in," she shared. She believes that Duy has strengths in Reading comprehension thanks to his quick thinking and good vocabulary memory. In class, each time he takes a Reading test, if the time is 20 minutes, Duy only needs 10 minutes. Male students also often get maximum scores on vocabulary tests.
"Last semester, she got 10 full marks in English," Ms. Huong said.
Even though she was in an English class, Khuong Duy did not have a smooth start with this subject. When he was in elementary school, Duy "didn't study well" and often memorized to cope with tests. Seeing that, my parents let me go to extra classes with my best friends.
“I have a competitive personality, and seeing my friends get high scores, I study hard to surpass them. Just like that, the more I study, the more I like English," Duy said.
Duy often watches movies with English subtitles and humorous English teaching videos by teacher Dan Hauer to increase his vocabulary and learn to speak with a foreigner's accent. However, up to now, male students still admit that they are weak in speaking skills, and sometimes their pronunciation and intonation are not natural. Duy spends his free time improving this skill, mainly using Cambridge and Oxford dictionaries to correct vocabulary pronunciation.
Duy considers English an important tool to help him discover and self-study more knowledge, such as programming. I have learned java script, html, C++... through technology websites like w3schools, codeacademy. Last August, Duy was a member of the team that won the gold prize at AI-JAM, the International Science and Technology Innovation Competition, held annually in Silicon Valley, USA.
The male student said he would use SAT and IELTS scores for admission to many universities, including Hanoi Polytechnic University.
"My biggest wish is to be admitted to this school's Information Technology major," Duy said.
Phuong Anh
