University of Alberta Edmonton, Canada 29 November 1996

Perfection!

Re-examination of IB marks reveals a perfect score for Engineering student Tim Poon

By David Holehouse

"Could do better" is what Gord Cameron must have thought when student Tim Poon scored 44 out of a possible 45 on his high school International Baccalaureate program.

Cameron, IB coordinator at Old Scona Academic High School in Edmonton, played his hunch and asked IB scrutineers to take another look at Poon's marks. The final result: a rare and perfect 45. Only a few IB students around the world pull in a perfect score each year, but Edmonton this year produced two: Poon, an engineering student, and Wynne Leung, a U of A physiology student.

"The maximum score on the six IB exams is 42, and then another three points are given for an essay and a small theory of knowledge course", Poon says. "In August my marks showed I had 44 out of 45, because I got six instead of seven for the biology exam. When people at Old Scona wanted to have the marks reviewed I said 'fine'.

"I was pretty happy with what I had. I didn't expect they'd be able to get anything changed. But then when the results came in late October, they had rescored the exam and moved my mark to a seven. It was a total surprise to me. I was very happy and amazed that I had that score, and what really impressed me was that there was someone else in Edmonton who'd done the same thing."

The engineering student said he'd always intended to attend the University of Alberta. Financial incentives for top students, including the Chancellor's Citation for $15,000, "just made it better".

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