36 Points to Perfection

Alyssa Tompkins

There is always one day that High school Juniors dread more than any other: A.C.T testing day. The test is in fact very difficult, covering the subjects of Math, English, Science, and Writing. The entire test is out of 36 points, and this score out of 36 is the score colleges will be looking at for the entirety of a student’s college application process.

A perfect score of 36 points is very rare for a student to receive, yet Capital’s Ethan Davidson did the seemingly impossible. Davidson, now a senior here at Capital, garnered a perfect A.C.T. score. I had the opportunity to talk to Davidson about this academic success. When I asked Davidson if he was worried about the test he, like all students, said yes. With a grin and a chuckle of remembrance he explained, “Yeah, I’m not going to lie, I was stressed out. I tend to stress about everything, and the A.C.T. is such an important test, you know? A lot of colleges pay attention to it, and it gives you a lot of opportunities.”

With such success comes a great deal of congratulations from people who barely know Davidson. He elaborates, “It’s nice, but at the same time it’s also kind of rough having people constantly coming up to me and saying congratulations; it gets kind of old”. While Davidson may come across as self-centered, he acknowledges this with a shake of his head, and explains that he is just not used to this type of attention: “I don’t like talking about myself,” he says.

Talking with Davidson proved just exactly why he got and deserved his perfect score. He spoke about learning from mistakes and knowing yourself well enough to be able to work on your shortcomings. For Davidson, this was going into the test watching a stopwatch for time and studying hard on the Math portion. Without seeming arrogant, Davidson agreed that he properly earned his success on the test, explaining that he worked very hard and diligently in order to get to the top.