Huynh Quoc Bao of Le Quy Don High School for the Gifted in the former Ba Ria-Vung Tau Province, now part of Ho Chi Minh City, received his result last week. He said he had set no target score going into the exam, and that his approach mirrored the way he studies in general: work to his ability and let the result follow.
The SAT is a standardized English-language exam used widely in U.S. and European university admissions. It runs 54 questions in Reading and Writing and 44 in Math, scored out of 1600. According to College Board which runs the SAT, a score of 1520 already places a test-taker in roughly the top 1% of the testing pool.
Huynh Quoc Bao, a student at Le Quy Don High School for the Gifted in the former Ba Ria-Vung Tau Province. Photo courtesy of Bao |
Bao began planning for the exam late in 11th grade to keep his university options open. He started reviewing general material in June last year but paused in September after being selected for Ho Chi Minh City’s team for the national chemistry competition for gifted students.
He won a third prize at the national level, enough to qualify him for direct university admission, but kept preparing for the SAT anyway, because he wanted the freedom to choose his field rather than have it chosen for him.
His first practice test came in at 1500. Reviewing the result, he saw the pattern: he had been getting bogged down on hard questions and skipping easier ones, losing avoidable points. The strategy he built around that diagnosis became the rule he stuck with through test day. Easy questions first. Hard ones after. Always leave time at the end to check the work.
On test day, math came easily. Reading and writing was harder. Several questions forced him to slow down and work through them by elimination and inference.
“There were a few questions I wasn’t sure about, but the result was within what I expected,” Bao said.
He said the section’s difficulty comes from the density of the language. Passages are long, the grammar is complex, and skimming is dangerous.
“The SAT is tricky because every word in the sentence matters. If you skim, it’s easy to misread and pick the wrong answer,” he said. “I always read carefully and pay attention to detail.”
The exam also rewards a deep vocabulary, and Bao built his with a method he calls his “wheel of fortune,” a randomized study tool that surfaces a different word each spin. The element of surprise, he said, builds quicker recall than rote memorization. He also writes his own example sentences for each new word so the meaning has somewhere to anchor.
English has been an advantage for Bao since childhood. He scored 7.5 on IELTS last year. He had originally planned to focus on English in school until he encountered chemistry in eighth grade and was pulled in by the unusual elements and the colorful reactions in the lab.
“I’m good at math and physics, but I don’t find them interesting. Chemistry makes me want to explore and figure out why these phenomena happen when substances come into contact,” he said.
He kept investing in math and English alongside his specialty, finding that both reinforced his chemistry work. Advanced chemistry equations require mathematical reasoning, and English gives him access to the latest international research literature.
The combination let Bao skip ahead and compete in the Olympic 27/4, the provincial gifted-student competition then run by the former Ba Ria-Vung Tau Province, where he took an honorable mention in 10th grade. Two years later he had collected a string of awards: top scorer at the Olympic 27/4, a gold medal at the Olympic 30/4 southern Vietnam competition, and an honorable mention followed by a third prize at the national level.
Through the busiest stretches, Bao kept time for piano and guitar, contributed to school performances, and was strict with himself about one thing in particular: sleep.
“My motto is to study less but study effectively, rather than grinding day and night. The later I stay up, the less productive I get, so I rarely go to bed later than 10:30 p.m.,” he said.
Nguyen Thi Lien, Bao’s homeroom teacher of three years, described him as warm, modest, and committed to his own path rather than chasing the crowd. Several teachers had suggested he move toward medicine or pharmacy given his academic profile, but he has stuck with chemistry.
“He studies in a relaxed frame of mind and doesn’t fixate on winning, so in class he’s often the one giving way and helping his classmates,” Lien said.
Although direct admission is likely, Bao said he still plans to give the upcoming high school graduation exam his full effort. He is considering chemical engineering, chemistry, or chemistry education programs at Ho Chi Minh City University of Technology, the University of Science, or the University of Education.
“I plan to finish my undergraduate degree in Vietnam and then look for a scholarship to study applied chemistry abroad,” he said.
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