Story posted Wednesday, June 17, 2009
5 Dist. 207 Students Post Perfect ACT Scores
Five Maine Township High School Dist. 207 students recently achieved a composite score of 36---the highest mark possible---on their ACT exams.
The five are Ryan Murphy, Charles Schultz and Salvatore Parenti III, all of Maine South, and Bryan Bishop and Sean Hansen, both of Maine West.
Schultz, Parenti and Bishop scored their 36's during the ACT national testing day of Apr. 4. According to ACT---the independent, not-for-profit organization that creates, distributes and scores the exam bearing the same name---only 38 students in Illinois who took the exam on Apr. 4 achieved a composite score of 36, and only 268 students across the nation achieved this score.
Hansen and Murphy scored 36 when they took the ACT later in April as one segment of the state-required Prairie State Achievement Exams. ACT has not reported how many Illinois students scored 36 on the exam as part of the Prairie State battery of tests, but fewer than 1 percent of all students who take the ACT at any time earn a composite of 36. In fact, ACT statistics show that only one in every 3,300 students who took the exam in 2008 scored a composite of 36.
The ACT, used widely by universities and colleges for admissions decisions, consists of English, math, reading and science tests---each segment of which is scored separately, on a scale of 1 to 36, and then factored together for the composite score.
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