The third time taking the ACT test was the charm for Andy Vernetti, who just ended his junior year at Signal Mountain Middle- High School.
After first scoring a 32 and then a 35, Vernetti aced the standardized test on his third try with a perfect score of 36.
That puts him into a super-elite group. On average, fewer than one-tenth of 1 percent of students who take the ACT earn the top score. Only 1,407 students among the almost 1.85 million test-takers nationwide in the high school graduating class of 2014 scored a 36, ACT officials said.
Vernetti learned of the perfect score after his father, David Vernetti, opened a letter from ACT and saw the results.
"My dad called me - which isn't usually a good sign," Andy Vernetti said. "I was like, 'Wow.' I didn't believe him at first."
ACT spokeswoman Katie Wacker was impressed that Vernetti was able to improve his performance from an initial 32 points to 36.
"That's a remarkable increase," she said. "It's really difficult to increase your score by one or two [points]."
Improvement is possible, because the ACT measures what students learn, she said.
"[The ACT] is a curriculum-based test measuring what students are learning at school," Wacker said. "It's not an IQ test, it's not an aptitude test - it's an achievement test."
Signal Mountain Middle High student Andy Vernetti received a perfect score of 36 on the ACT test.Vernetti had this advice for doing well on the ACT: "I'd say take it as many times as you need to and then identify what your weaknesses are and practice that."
He said math was his weakest subject, so Signal Mountain Middle High School math teacher Kathy McCormack steered him toward Study Island, an online learning program that let him practice such subjects as algebra and geometry.
"That really helped me," Vernetti said. "I needed a refresher."
Vernetti, who'll be a senior when school starts in the fall, plans to study computer engineering in college.
"I really like both the software and hardware sides of it," he said.
The most recent perfect ACT score from the Chattanooga area before Vernetti's was earned last year by Baylor School student Mimi Allison, who just graduated and plans to attend Berry College in Rome, Ga.
"We are so proud of Mimi," Baylor Headmaster Scott Wilson said in a statement. "She is truly a gifted dancer in addition to her many other talents."
A student's composite ACT score is the average of four separate scores in English, math, reading and science. So while a 36 is commonly called a "perfect" score, Wacker said, it doesn't mean someone answered every question right.
"They may have missed a question or two," she said.
Contact education writer Tim Omarzu at tomarzu@timesfree press.com or www.face book.com/tim.omarzu or twitter.com/TimOmarzu or 423-757-6651.