It was a Wednesday morning; Jr. Dominic Aquino woke up with excitement. He rolled over and quickly checked his phone. With disappointment, he realized the scores weren’t in. Jumping in the shower and executing his morning routine, Aquino became anxious. Arriving at school Aquino checked again; the scores were in. Aquino logged into his college board and checked for the numbers across the top.

1570.

This was not the only *1500+ score at West Ottawa.

Jr. Sam Gruenler-1520

Jr. Isaac Sierra-1540

Jr. Ben Shoemaker-1550

Jr. Dominic Aquino-1570

What did it take in order to get these phenomenal scores?

Sam Gruenler

  During his sophomore of high school Gruenler took AP Lang. He credits his nearly perfect English section of the SAT to AP Lang. “It really helps with the multiple choice and the grammar portion of the SAT. I got a 790 out of 800 on the English portion. I credit AP Lang because lots of the content we learned in the class was on the grammar and multiple choice portion of the test,” Gruenler said. His 730 on the math portion was mainly due to his intelligence when it comes to math and how many advanced classes he took.

Isaac Sierra

  When Sierra saw his score he was surprisingly disappointed. He was unhappy with his score because he thought he actually could do better; however, he credits his 1540 to the preparation he did before. “I’d jump on Khan Academy a lot. Like, I definitely could tell I was well prepared. I actually did better on my practice tests I took on Khan Academy than I did on the real one. That’s why I’m not happy with my score,” Sierra said. Like others, he also thinks AP Lang is the class to take to prepare for the English section. “Although I’m not very good at English and math is my specialty. I feel like I did decent on my English because of AP lang and the tools it provided me. I recommend taking the class for sure.”

Ben Shoemaker

WO introduced Khan Academy to WO students and so far it has been a successful tool. Shoemaker can atest to this considering he credits his 1550 to the preparation he put in to Khan Academy. “I have a free hour so about a monthish prior to the spring break I started spending my whole free hour on Khan Academy trying to prepare. It helped a lot,” Shoemaker said.

Dominic Aquino

  Aquino took it on himself to get the highest score he possibly could this spring. During spring break, Aquino sat down and took four SAT practice tests in order to prepare for the SAT. Like Gruenler, Aquino also credits AP Lang for his success on the English portion of the test. “Yeah AP Lang helped out a lot. I mean, I’m pretty good at the English portion already, but, I feel that AP Lang took my skills and catapulted them towards the score I got,” Aquino said. In total, Aquino got three questions wrong. Three. On the whole test. Aquino prepared the right way.  

To get a good score, preparation is key, that fact is obvious; however, how one prepares is the most important thing. Khan Academy and AP Lang are great opportunities to prepare oneself for the SAT at WO. Both classes/tools are available for any student to use. Take advantage of them both WO, they can improve your scores.

*If you got a 1500+ and were not credited, the West Ottawan apologizes.