What’s Tuong Hoang’s secret to preparing for the ACT? Relaxing the day before.
The Arkansas School for Mathematics, Sciences and the Arts senior from Fayetteville said he doesn’t do any special preparation before taking an important test, such as the ACT or SAT. Instead, he spends the day before relaxing by reading a book, watching a movie or some other fun activity.
“The more relaxed I am the better I feel I can do on the test,” he said.
That strategy paid off for Hoang, who scored a perfect composite 36 on the ACT when he took the test in September. When he found out his score, he reacted to the news in a similar manner.
“I was like ‘Oh, huh, well that happened,’ “ Hoang said, chuckling. “I was happy about it but not as excited about it as others in my position might have been.”
Hoang, the son of Trinh Vu and Bang Hoang of Fayetteville, said he knew he had a good opportunity to improve upon his previous scores of 34, which he earned as a junior at ASMSA, and 33, which he scored during his sophomore year at Fayetteville High School.
He took the ACT a third time so that he could include the writing portion of the test, which many institutions of higher education prefer a potential student take. He wanted to improve his scores on the other sections — English, mathematics, reading and science — but wasn’t worried about how well he would do on those sections.
“I describe myself as a natural test taker. I don’t really stress too much about the ACT or SAT. I just take it and see what I get,” he said.
Hoang said he’s planning to major in biomedical engineering, and he would like to attend Duke University in Durham, N.C. The university has the second-best biomedical engineering program in the nation, he said, but it also has many other quality programs, in case he changes his mind on his career path.