Nicole Barr, from the UK, has just scored perfectly for her Mensa IQ test. The 12 year old scored 162 which is 2 points above Albert Einstein and Stephen Hawking.
Nicole and her father, Jim took the test at the same time for fun because the dad didn’t want to put her under pressure. Although Barr anticipated Nicole to do well, he himself didn’t know that she would score a full score.
“I was expecting her to do well. I knew she had a quick mind for working out problems and puzzles,” Jim tells Yahoo Parenting.
“I didn’t want to put any pressure on her, so we went for the fun of it. I had the idea in my mind that she would get into Mensa, but when I got the results back, I thought, ‘Wow that’s a high score!’ It wasn’t until later that I learned it was the top score possible on that test.”
Ann Clarkson, communications manager for British Mensa, confirmed Nicole’s score to Yahoo Parenting. “[A score of] 162 puts her in the top one percent of the population, so it is exceptional by any definition,” she says.
“She’s always loved numbers and puzzles, and she’s always been excellent at math, performing several years ahead of her age group in school,” he says. “It’s just the type of thing she likes to do. She likes challenging herself.”
Barr mentioned that her scores surpassed his by a long way. “She was rubbing my face in it a bit,” Jim laughed.
And while Jim says his daughter enjoys reading and solving math problems in her spare time – even during summer break – he points out that her interests aren’t all academic. “She likes playing soccer, and she’s performing in a Shakespeare play coming up,” he says. “She does enjoy acting, and she loves singing — even if it’s just to herself.”
Nicole wishes to become a doctor, in which his father think will suit her very well, and maybe invent a new medicine.
“She often thinks outside of the box,” Jim explains. “She sees things with a different point of view, even when many adults might be scratching their heads.”
Jim, of course, is an exceptionally proud dad, “I was always proud,” he says. “The test hasn’t changed anything.”
