An 11-year-old Iranian school girl has just become the new face of braininess after receiving the highest possible score on the Mensa IQ test.
Tara Sharifi, a student from Aylesbury High School in the
United Kingdom, recently took the test in Oxford and received an astounding 162
points. Sharifi's score is significantly over the "genius threshold"
of 140.
Albert Einstein is believed to have had the same IQ as
Professor Stephen Hawking, 160 (Einstein himself never took the IQ test and
Stephen Hawking's score comes from another source).
It's an incredible accomplishment, and no one was more
surprised than Tara herself.
“I was shocked when I got the result – I never expected to
get such a good score,” Tara told The Bucks Herald.
“It was a joint decision between me and my parents to take
the test."
Tara's impressive score means she now qualifies for Mensa
membership (AKA the High IQ Society), where she'll get to contact other
members, joining the ranks of highly publicized women like actress Geena Davis
and US writer Joyce Carol Oates. Mensa membership has no age limitations at the
moment. One-third of Mensa members in Australia are youngsters.
“It will be a wonderful opportunity to meet other people
within the Mensa system. I have told some of my friends at school and they were
really impressed,” Tara told The Bucks Herald.
Her father, Hossein Sharifi, told reporters that he is
"very pleased" with his daughter, despite the fact that he was aware
of her academic brilliance. “I figured she might do well when we watched TV and
she would get maths questions before the contestants. I knew she was very
clever but I did not think she would have such a high IQ.”
The 11-year-old has indicated an interest in furthering her
math studies – possibly a clue that she will follow in the footsteps of late
Fields Medal-winning mathematician Maryam Mirzakhani?