Brit-Indian girl beats Einstein and Hawking at Mensa IQ test

Monday 07th September 2015 13:35 EDT
 
 

12 year old Lydia Sebastian, a student of Colchester County High School in Essex, has achieved the maximum score in the Mensa IQ test, outdoing Physicists Albert Einstein and Stephen Hawking. The IQs of both Hawking and Einstein are believed to be 160, while Lydia scored 162, the maximum score for under-18s.

In an interview with The Guardian, she reportedly said: "At first, I was really nervous but once I started, it was much easier than I expected it to be and then I relaxed."  Lydia completed the paper with minutes to spare at Birkbeck College, London during her school holidays.

Her father, Arun Sebastian, a radiologist at Colchester general hospital, reportedly said: "Lydia had looked at the websites for the IQ tests herself and had shown an interest in them and talked to my wife Erika Kottiah, who is an Associate Director at barclays Bank, about them, so she said: 'Why don't you go ahead with them'?"

Mensa is the largest and oldest high-IQ society in the world in which membership is open to anyone who can demonstrate an IQ in the top 2% of the population, measured by a recognised or approved IQ testing process.

Lydia joins Nicole Barr, a 12-year-old from Harlow, Essex, as well as Aahil Jouher, a 10-year-old from Blackburn, in achieving perfect Mensa scores this year.


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