Planning for Perfection: After studying results from previous session, senior puts together perfect 36 on ACT

Senior Ivan Kozlov

Ivan Kozlov didn’t particularly feel optimistic about his score when he was leaving the ACT in October. He even believed that he had received the worst score out of all four times he took the ACT. What he didn’t know then was that he actually was walking out with a score of 36.

Being an A student, Kozlov has always pushed himself, but unlike a lot of students, his parents don’t put much pressure on him to have academic success, so all his work and effort to get the grades and scores he gets comes purely from self motivation.

Kozlov spent several days prior to the test working on practice tests and questions. Coming into the test, he didn’t feel a lot of pressure.

“The test goes easier if you don’t stress about it,” Kozlov said.

It didn’t hurt that this wasn’t his first time walking into this test. He had gotten good enough scores the first three times to not worry that much about this last test. The first two in his junior year included the writing portion and the last two in his senior year was without writing.

Kozlov described the day of the test more like a school day: he got up early, went and took the test, then went home to do homework. The test itself took a little more than three hours, but it ended up being a lot longer because it took a while to get everyone seated and get through the instructions.

Like the routine test taking, Kozlov has standard suggestions for success. “Get enough sleep, eat breakfast, etc. — the stuff that gets drilled into you. Take the test multiple times. Use the score report to find what you’re bad at and improve on it,” Kozlov said, and that is just what he did to get the maximum score on the ACT.

He also recommends not arriving too early considering the test takes so long to set up and there is a lot of waiting around.