ICAS High Distinction certificates are awarded to the top 1% of participants in each country. We would like to congratulate the following Northcross students who have achieved a High Distinction award in 2024 and a special mention to Yanxing (Robert) Chen who achieved a High Distinction Trifecta.
Year 8 English: Maria Riley and Joe Zhang
Year 7 English: Tom Bateup, Robert Chen, Naia Carson Neufeld, Emma He, Xavier Kennedy, Isla Randal, Olivia Zhang, and Claire Zhong
Year 8 Science: Jason Hao, Sophie Lau, Leyang Wang, Jonathan Xu, Lorraine Yin, Joe Zhang, and Cyrus Zhou
Year 7 Science: Robert Chen, Gary Gao, William Keesing, Edward Liu, Cory Simpson, Emma Smith, and Dylan Sun
Year 8 Maths: Jessie Dong, Jason Hao, Jonathan Xu, Yigu Ye, Samuel Zhang, and Cyrus Zhao
Year 7 Maths: Eric Chen, Robert Chen, Keddy Gong, William Keesing, Dylan Sun and Ethan Tu.
Special Medal Winners (banner photo above):
A stunning acknowledgement to the following students who achieved Top of New Zealand in ICAS, and are awarded a special medal for their phenomenal achievement: William Keesing for Maths and Science, Robert Chen for Science, Jessie Dong for Maths and Sophie Lau for Science.
Student reflections
ICAS is an international test. The tests offered by Northcross are the English, Science, and Maths test, all of which I sat. Before the tests, I practised past papers, provided by the school. Practice prepared me for the type of questions asked. I could see that it paid off because as I continued doing the papers, the number of questions that I got wrong became smaller. Before the tests, I felt anxious, but once I had started getting into the flow of the questions, I calmed down realising that I was familiar with the types of questions. After receiving my results, I think I did well and I’m happy to sit the tests again next year.
By Anita Hout
ICAS was a mixed emotion experience for me. Before the ICAS tests, I had thought that the questions would be a lot harder, considering it is a national test, but the questions turned out to be easier than expected. The practice questions turned out to be exactly like the real ones, and I think that really helped me to prepare for what was expected, and how to understand how the whole process worked. The time limit had mixed purposes for me, as sometimes it felt like a motivation to finish the test in time and sometimes it felt like pressure for me to hurry up. All in all, ICAS was an informative and interesting experience for me, and I would definitely happily do it again next year.
By Isla Randall
