Moorhead High School graduate earned perfect Advanced Placement exam score
November 26, 2013
Moorhead High School graduate Matthew Lillehaugen was one of only 33 students in the world to earn a perfect score on his Advanced Placement Microeconomics exam in spring 2013.
Lillehaugen answered every multiple-choice question correctly and earned the maximum scores on each of the essays in the free-response section of the exam. In total, 67,682 students took the AP Microeconomics Exam in 2013.
Advanced Placement Exam scores are reported on a scale of 1 to 5, where a 5 is equivalent to grades of A+ and A in the corresponding college course. Lillehaugen received the top score of 5. Only 14.3 percent of all 3,938,100 exams taken in 2013 earned this top score.
According to Michael Kieselbach, Moorhead High School AP Economics teacher, Lillehaugen is an extraordinary student.
“He strives to understand and constantly asked questions when he did not,” Kieselbach said. “What sets him apart is his ability to learn from wrong answers and not see mistakes as a failure but an opportunity to learn the correct way. I had a feeling he would do well on the exam, but his results are truly impressive.”
The Advanced Placement Exams are written and scored by college professors from around the world. They are typically designed to cover a full-year of intensive, college-level knowledge and skills, so it is rare for a high school student to earn every point possible on the exam. Looking across approximately 4 million AP Exams that were taken by 2.2 million students in 2013, in subjects ranging from Art History to Calculus to Physics, 109 students earned every point possible on an AP Exam — a result characterized by the College Board’s AP Program as “an extraordinary academic achievement.”
The College Board’s Advanced Placement Program provides students with the opportunity to take rigorous college-level courses while still in high school. In 2013, approximately 4 million exams were taken by 2.2 million students at 18,920 high schools around the world. Students received scores of 3 or higher on 59 percent of these exams, potentially qualifying them for college credit or advanced placement (or both) at colleges and universities worldwide.
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