Some families share certain traits like hair color, the same nose, or even the same laugh. In junior Kate Luckerman’s family, it’s the same ACT score. A perfect 36.
Luckerman’s older brother Alex also received a perfect score, putting her on the spot.
“I felt like it was just another expectation that he had set for me that I had to live up to,” Luckerman said. “I don’t know if I would have put as much effort into it if that expectation hadn’t been there.”
Their parents must be doing something right if both children receive perfect scores. Nothing like your average family.
“My parents are the ones who pushed me to take in it the summer so that I wouldn’t have anything else going on,” Luckerman said. “They pressured me to study in the week leading up to it. They kept joking that I had to get a 37 to be better than my brother and that made me feel super pressured but I guess it paid off.”
A Lot of students prepare for the ACT by taking classes in or outside of school. This was not the case for Kate. To prepare you don’t just need to learn the skills, but become aware of what they are testing you on.
“I used a book that my brother gave me that had the tricks for each section and a bunch of practice,” Luckerman said. “Since there are so many versions of the ACT they have to test you on certain skills each time to try to make the tests similar and the best way for me to get prepared was to learn about all the different things the ACT tries to test you on, so when I was taking it I could recognize what they were doing.”
Her brother helped had to help give her advice on what to do since he was pretty familiar with the ins and outs of the test.
“He told me to take a practice test and act like it was really the test environment so I could know how I might actually do,” Luckerman said.
After receiving a perfect score, you’re destined for college. Luckerman is only a junior this year. So what this means for her is she has a lot of options. But this doesn’t mean that she is slacking off in her academics at all.
“I still try hard in all my classes because school is pretty much the only talent I have,” Luckerman said. “So to me it’s worth putting a lot of time into it. Also, my parents would kill me if I didn’t try hard in my classes because school is super important to them.”
Finally, what comes along with taking any test stress or worrying to much about it. Relax and prepare yourself.
“I never take too much time actually reading the reading sections,” Luckerman said. “I’m always so stressed out that I don’t remember any of it. I skipped questions that I didn’t know how to do at first because a lot of times I would come back to it and instantly know what I was doing wrong.”