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Absolutus perfectus National Latin Exam for GHS sophomore
Talk about your carpe diem moments ...
Greencastle High School sophomore Ben Wilkerson didn’t just seize the day -- as the Latin phrase might suggest -- he wrapped a giant bow around it and took it home with him, earning a perfect score on the recent 40-question National Latin Exam sponsored by the American Classical League and National Junior Classical League.
By all accounts and in any language, that translates into a first for GHS.
“I’ve been giving the test for 15 years,” GHS Latin and English teacher Nicole Burkhalter said, “and he’s the first one to pull it off.”
A Latin I student, Wilkerson was one of thousands of high schoolers across the country who tackled an exam featuring questions on grammar, comprehension, mythology, literature and derivatives, along with Roman life, history and geography, oral Latin and Latin in use in the modern world.
And how tough is achieving a perfect score?
Well, 46,645 students took the Latin I exam in 2017 with just 202 posting perfect scores. That’s less than one-half of one percent (.0043 to be exact). Figures for 2018 were not available but are likely similar in nature, although Burkhalter thinks it was more like 60,000 students taking the exam this time.
“I knew if anybody could do it,” Burkhalter praised, “it would be Ben because he seemed motivated to do the extra studying necessary outside of class.”
The son of Beth and Scott Wilkerson of Greencastle agreed that practice really did make perfect for him.
“I did a lot of practicing,” he said. “I really don’t know how long, but I know it helped a lot.”
The extra work allowed him to flawlessly handle Latin passages with vocabulary from various areas. And talk about a double-whammy, about a third of the questions were actually written in Latin.
Wilkerson, who said a keen interest in mythology helped motivate him to tackle Latin as a language, had to squeeze in his exam preparation along his other school activities that include soccer, track, band, Spell Bowl, Academic Super Bowl, French Club, Latin Club, Student Council, the Youth Philanthropy Committee through the Putnam County Community Foundation and serving as sophomore class president.
“He’s definitely a jack-of-all-trades,” Burkhalter perfectly suggested, “but he’s a master of Latin.”
Over the years, Burkhalter noted, “at least 10” Greencastle students have missed Wilkerson-like perfection by one or two questions.
“I’ve been lucky to have so many students who have done so well,” she added, mentioning that other current GHS Latin students earned accolades from the National Latin Exam as well among the 45 who took the recent test in the school cafeteria.
Those awards were:
Cum laude -- Ivy Wright, Kaylynn Gropp, Oliver MacKenzie, Olivia Schneider, Ryan Kempf, Dannis Zheng and Cade Plew.
Magna cum laude -- Zoe Weltz and Molly Eising.
Maxima cum laude -- Jaxon Parmley, Sydney Doan, Bailey Williams and Jakob Foss.
Summa cum laude -- Josh Nally, Michael White and Michael Thede joining Ben Wilkerson.