钟琬婷在ACT模考公开赛颁奖典礼上的获奖感言

 
    琬婷在ACT模考公开赛颁奖典礼上。此次模考夺得一等奖，琬婷获得了主办方奖励的3000元奖学金，并接受了《羊城晚报》记者的采访。

Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen!

     I am Zhong Wanting, a student from Guangdong Experimental High School. I am very honoured to speak here as the winner of this competition. First of all, I would like to thank the ACT Preparation College of Global University of South China Centre for organizing this excellent competition. It has provided a stage for us high school students, especially top English learners, to show our talent in the English language. It has also provided a chance for us to experience the American College Test ourselves, as well as opened our eyes to the various opportunities and choices that may be waiting for us in the continent beyond. Through this competition, we can better assess our abilities and understand our strengths and dreams, so that we can put steadier and more effective efforts into our aspirations.

Sitting the American College Test had allowed me to enjoy a fresh and meaningful experience. The thick test booklet had presented a daunting yet engaging challenge for us all. On the whole, I found that with steady pacing and sufficient speed, the ACT test was not too hard to tackle, yet the pressing allotment of time did pose difficulties in the test. Although I had taken the IELTS and the Internet-based TOEFL before and received 100% in the Reading sections, I failed to achieve a perfect score in the Reading section in the ACT this time. I had hardly encountered any enigmatic vocabulary in the passages and had found the questions relatively easy to answer, yet as I had not paced my time reasonably and had been too hasty in tackling some of the questions, I had made a few errors in this section. Therefore, it is imperative that you pace yourself well during the test and work on the questions in a sober and organized manner. Furthermore, the Reading section covers a wide range of subjects, including prose fiction, social studies, natural sciences and humanities, so you can enhance your comprehension and hone your reading skills by reading diversely to familiarize yourself with all kinds of subject matter.

On the other hand, Math and Science were relatively easier to deal with despite the magnitude of these sections. The Math section is sufficiently covered by the Chinese high school mathematics curriculum, and as a bonus, there are scarcely any tough problems. If you can comprehend the math questions in the ACT, you probably will be guaranteed a high math score, whereas in Chinese math exams, you may still find a problem hard to tackle even though you have fully understood what the question is asking. To adapt to the math questions written in English, it is advisable to visit some English mathematics websites (such as Math Forum @ Drexel) and try solving the problems posted there.

As to the Science section, it is designed mainly to assess a student’s analytical and reasoning skills, so only the basics of the science subjects, instead of advanced knowledge, are required of a test-taker. This is very different from Chinese Science tests, which focus on a student’s problem-solving ability and memorization of formulas, and usually contain some extraordinarily complicated questions. Therefore, it may be hard for first-time ACT test-takers to get accustomed to this type of problems, but with frequent practices, the Science section will no longer be ‘a hard nut to crack’.

The English section bears some similarity to Chinese sentence correction exercises in that it eva1uates a test-taker’s mastery of language usage and rhetorical skills. As this section is directed towards native English speakers, some students may feel confused by the questions. Still, you can navigate through this section with ease if you take notice of English usage skills consciously while reading English articles and try to cultivate a good sense of the language.

Above all, I think that unfamiliarity with the style and content of the test was also a main reason why we find the ACT challenging. Therefore, it is important that we familiarize ourselves with the form, scope and level of a test before sitting it. Hence, it is quite necessary for most students to receive systematic training in ACT in order to achieve an ideal test score. Through this kind of training, students can discover their strengths and shortcomings and master useful test taking skills so as to secure a high score and take another step closer to their dreams.

Speaking of myself, I have been fascinated by top American universities since primary school. It has always been my wish to pursue my higher education in the world’s top educational institutions, such as MIT, Duke and Harvard. These top Western academies have been a lasting dream to me, a dream that I hope will come true some day.

Finally, I would like to thank the ACT Preparation College of Global University of South China Centre again for the effort its staff had put into this competition. I would like to thank my parents for the care and encouragement they had always offered me. I would like to thank my father especially, for I would not have been standing here on this stage if it had not been for his dedicating effort and instructions. I would also like to thank all my friends and teachers, who have helped me and supported me in my daily life.

I would like to end my speech with the words of James Dean, ‘Dream as if you’ll live forever. Live as if you’ll die today.’ Everybody here has his or her own aspirations. If we cherish our dreams and make full use of every day in our life, I am sure that we will all have a promising future.

Thank you!

        广东实验中学    高二（1）班    钟琬婷