Meet Cedrick Argueta, badass math gangsta. The Southern California teen was one of only twelve students in the entire world to earn a perfect score on the Advanced Placement Calculus AB exam.
Lincoln Heights Teenager One of Only 12 Worldwide to Get Perfect Score on AP Calculus Exam
Cedrick, a 17-year-old senior at Abraham Lincoln High School in Lincoln Heights, was one of 302,532 students to take the exam, which tests the fundamental theories of calculus in a series of multiple choice and free-response problems. But he's one of only a dozen students who aced the whole damn test.
Every. Single. Question. Cedrick found out last summer that he had scored a 5, the top score possible on the exam. But last week, his principal received a letter from the College Board informing him that Cedrick had gotten every single question correct, calling it a "remarkable achievement."
Since word of his feat has spread, Cedrick, the son of a Salvadoran maintenance worker -- who never went to high school -- and a Filipina nurse, has been become something of a celebrity at Lincoln High, doing media interviews and earning the nickname "One of Twelve" among friends. When's the last time a math nerd got this kind of shine? And still, he sounds like a pretty humble kid:
As far as math whizzes go, Cedrick is unassuming. He likes to play basketball with his buddies, and his favorite reading of late was the Harry Potter series. Knowing he was going to do television interviews this week, he donned a blue LHS hoodie and sneakers.
Math has always just made sense to him, he said. He appreciates the creativity of it, the different methods you can take to solve a problem.
"There's also some beauty in it being absolute," Cedrick said. "There's always a right answer."
When asked about his perfect exam score, Cedrick just thanked everybody else in his life.
That's beautiful.
According to a news release from the Los Angeles Unified School District, Cedrick also earned perfect scores on the English and math sections of the ACT college-entrance exam. Next up, he has plans to take four more AP exams, including the Calculus BC segment. Rock it, kid. (But I think you'll be okay if you don't.)
Cedric's ultimate goal is to study at Caltech and one day work at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory as an engineer, and perhaps "design something really cool." I have no doubt this will happen.
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