This year, several high school seniors have been invited by Mr. Taylor to join the GAC program. We hopped on for the joy ride that was going to be an arduous year-long. So now, there are nine of us, ranging in age from 16-19. In order of who is sitting around me right now (doing absolutely nothing but killing time) here is the GAC class: Marina Sew-Atjon (aka chatterbox), Sabrina Vaseur (aka moes), Vincent Hilversum (aka Vinnator), Michelle Partoredjo( aka Michi), Svetoisckia Sahtoe (aka pumpkin pie), Stephan Playfair (aka Stephenie), Zikomo Mhango (aka zizi), Khabir King (aka spot), and Daniel Lee (aka Daniel).
GAC stands for Global Assessment Certificate. It is a college-preparatory course designed by ACT Education Solutions, Limited, a renowned worldwide association focused on preparing and testing students for college. There are three levels of GAC, each lasting three months.
Each subject (of which there are 6-7 for each level) is labeled with a three-digit number preceded by ‘GAC’ and followed by the title of the subject. For example, a subject in Level One is GAC006: Business, Science, and Social Science I: Communication Skills. GAC001, GAC002, GAC005, GAC006 are taught by Mr. Milton Drepaul, our ‘witty professor’ and GAC003 and GAC004 are taught by Mr. Sean Taylor, commander-in-chief of AMA, and Mr. Emiel Krak, second commander-in-chief of AMA, respectively.
Each student of GAC has a unique student ID number that begins with ‘ALPH’ and is followed by a 5-digit number. True to our ID, we are all unique and interesting in our own ways. This group of GAC students is a dynamic one.
Marina-future biochemist-is a pestering hot-headed teenager who likes to chew something every half hour. Sabrina, whose hopes lie in studying radiology, calls every one ‘sweety’ and has a memory stick constantly infected with aliens from Cybertron. Vincent, who dreams to be a marine biologist, is an intelligent nutcase aspiring to be an even greater intelligent nutcase through the course of his life. Michelle loves to imitate a German accent, look clueless even though she really is not, and wants to be forensic scientist. Tos loves the idea of computers so she wants to be a computer technologist. She loves tea (for some strange reason) and listening to music while she works. Stephan (potential hydrologist) likes producing movies and is a track-and-field star. I (possible pharmacognosist) am going to butter my profile up and just say that I do all my assignments with an elated smile on my face. Khabir loves football and has a laptop that constantly smells like it is on fire which probably has something to so with his want to become a mechanical engineer. Last, but surely not least, Daniel (aspiring electronics engineer) loves big bikes and anything electronic, especially computers.
This GAC group is a diverse one, there is no doubt about that, but if there is one thing we have in common, it is the realization that GAC Level One, which we are now completing, is really just the beginning.
by: Zikomo Mhango
AlphaMax Academy - Suriname's Premier English Language School. Since 1998 AlphaMax Academy has delivered a Classics values based educational program in English designed for Surinamese students. Its graduates have gone on to universities in several international countries including the UK, the Caribbean,Holland,the US and China. Alphamax is the Suriname center for ACT, GAC and IELTS. AlphaMx students have been doing ACT (since 2004), PSAT ( since 2005), GAC ( since 2007)and IELTS (since 2011).