11-year-old UK Indian girl gets top Mensa score

An 11-year-old British-Indian girl, Saanya Verma, got the top score in Mensa test and it has put her squarely in the top one percentile across the globe. Saanya has scored the maximum possible scores in the Mensa test — Cattell IIIB scale – 162 and Culture Fair scale – 142.

Saanya has received Level 6 for both English (Reading & SPAG – Spelling punctuation and grammar) and Maths for KS2 SATS.

“I can confirm that Saanya is one of the youngest to achieve 162 in the supervised test as it can only be taken by people over the age of 10 and a half,” a Mensa spokesperson said. Saanya is a Year 7 student at a leading independent school in northwest London area.

Saanya was one of the 38 from her school amongst 79,000 primary school pupils who took part in the first round of the primary maths challenge. She was awarded a gold certificate and was one of 1,184 children invited to take part in the bonus round. She was one amongst only 153 pupils who have been thereafter awarded a silver medal. Saanya, who is interested in the cosmos and maths, is an avid reader and spends a large amount of time working on robotics and electronics. She also has been developing codes for the robots (Lego Mindstorms) and electronic instruments (Arduino). Among various career choices she has been considering are scientist, mathematician, biogenetics, robotics, economist and may be a banker. Saanya’s father Sunil Verma is a banker by profession and spends a reasonable amount of time with her discussing science and robotics. Her mother Sunita Pati Verma, said, “It has been a proud moment for us and I think it’s an equally proud moment for the community that has provided her with the support and encouragement to achieve these unique objectives.”

Mensa is the High IQ society. It was formed in Oxford in 1946 by Roland Berrill, an Australian barrister and Dr Lance Ware, scientist and lawyer. The organisation later spread around the world. Standardised IQ tests look for competence in a range of areas like verbal, numerical etc.