Recently, thousands of students nationwide took the CLT Exam.  Mary Aumen, Gwynith Hayden, and Samuel Milliken – all MODG students – went above and beyond, receiving the National CLT Award.  This places them in the top 1% among thousands of test-takers across the United States and Canada – an incredible achievement!  Below are follow-up Q&A’s with two of the recipients.

Gwynith Hayden (VOX Photo Editor):

VOX: You won the CLT National Award, which means you are in the top 1% among thousands of students across the nation.  That’s a huge accomplishment! How do you feel about that?

Gwynith: I was very pleased to receive the award, but I think the best part was the number of MODG students who did well on this test. It was very gratifying to see how well our school performed on the CLT!

VOX:  How did you prepare for the test?

Gwynith:  There are four things that I would say really helped me to prepare for this test:

1) Testing every year. I’ve taken a test of some kind every year since I was in kindergarten. Doing this has really helped me to avoid getting nervous about tests in general.

2) Doing math every day. Over the years, I’ve built a habit of doing math every day. This has built up a discipline in study that has been extremely helpful. In addition to this, doing math every day has taught me to focus well when I study.

3) Extra reading. I read (or listen to) many books outside of the curriculum during the year. This year I’ve been listening to many of C.S. Lewis’ books, including The Great Divorce, Till We Have Faces, and his trilogy, Out of the Silent Planet. Reading great literature, in addition to what I read in the curriculum, has aided my studies and improved my writing vocabulary.

4) LS classes. Learning Support classes are wonderful! In class, you are asked difficult questions that require you to think on the spot. The feedback from my teachers and graders has been really formative in my writing. It has taught me valuable skills that were very helpful on the grammar/writing portion of the CLT test. I owe so much to Mrs. Crook, who has graded most of my work since 7th grade. I also think that taking journalism has been extremely helpful for my grammar and writing in general. So, thank you, Mrs. McCarthy!

VOX:  Where are you going to college, and what is your intended major?

Gwynith: I hope to attend Thomas Aquinas College in Southern California in a few years. They have a liberal arts program that will help me develop my mind in mathematics, natural sciences, philosophy and theology. I plan to go on to further studies in theology after that.

Samuel Milliken:

VOX: You won the CLT National Award, which means you are in the top 1% among thousands of students across the nation.  That’s a huge accomplishment! How do you feel about that?

Samuel: I feel excited and surprised!

VOX: How did you prepare for the test?

Samuel: The only things I did to prepare specifically for the test were taking a practice CLT a few days beforehand and listening to Bach’s double violin concerto on the morning of the test.  I think, however, that a classical education helped me a lot in doing such a good job. In particular, I think that reading copious quantities of great literature helped prepare me for the literature sections of the text, and that listening to long pieces of classical music helped me to be able to focus for an extended period of time. I also believe that Geometry and Latin definitely helped me to think logically. 

VOX: Where are you going to college, and what is your intended major?

My plans are either to go to Thomas More College of Liberal Arts in Merrimack, New Hampshire, where liberal arts is the only major available, or to major in great books at Northeast Catholic College in Warner, New Hampshire.

Congratulations again to Samuel, Gwynith, and Mary!