A 12-year-old schoolgirl in Britain has achieved an IQ score of 162 on the Mensa IQ test, higher than the famous genius physicists, Albert Einstein and Stephen Hawking, whose IQ scores are thought to be 160.
Nicole Barr, a member of the traveling Roma community and student at Burnt Mill Academy, Harlow, Essex, scored 162 points, placing her among the top one percent most intelligent people in the entire world, according to Mensa spokesperson Ann Clarkson.
The score of 162 is the highest reported score for the test. Only very few people have achieved it. It implies that Nicole could be smarter than Einstein and Hawking, world famous physicists.
Barr’s mother, 34-year-old Dolly Buckland, says she is proud of her daughter. Buckland praised Nicole, saying that she is working hard to fulfill her ambition of becoming a medical doctor.
She realized that she had a brilliant daughter when, at a very young age, Nicole began “picking out mistakes in books and magazines.” Nicole was also years ahead of her classmates in elementary school, solving difficult algebra problems her classmates couldn’t comprehend.
“She’s a hard, hard working child. She stays after school for homework club and never misses a day. From a young age she’s been picking out mistakes in books and magazines. She’s a happy, fun-loving girl who is always asking for extra homework. She’s determined to finish school and go to college and university to be a pediatrician.”
The schoolgirl’s father, James Barr, who mends roads for a living, also said he was proud of his daughter. He said the news of his daughter’s extraordinary achievement was being shared in the Roma community. Everyone in the community is proud of Nicole, and she has become the “talk of the gypsy community,” James said.
According to James, his daughter’s performance proves that academic brilliance is not the preserve of any group of people, but can occur among people from any background, regardless of status.
“The story has been going around the gypsy community, particularly on Facebook where it keeps being shared. It’s nice for us to be in the news for something good for a change. This shows that it doesn’t matter where you come from, anyone can be academically brilliant.”
Nicole’s head teacher also praised her achievement, saying she is an exemplary pupil.
“Nicole is a brilliant pupil. She works incredibly hard and has thrown herself into many different activities in her first year with us. For example she has been camping, entered writing competitions and taken part in a national maths challenge. She lives and breathes our unofficial motto of hard work pays.”
Although her parents said that Nicole’s performance was expected, the schoolgirl said she was shocked to learn that she scored so high.
“When I found out I got such a high score, it was so unexpected. I was shocked. I remember when I was in primary school and I was an angel in a school play, another girl who was playing the other angel didn’t turn up so I learnt her lines too.”
The IQ score of the average adult is 100. Any score above 100 is considered above average intelligence. Scores 120 and above are considered brilliant, while any score above 140 is genius level. People with scores 150 and above could be considered super-geniuses.
[Images Via and Wikimedia Commons]
