Brilliant, kiddo!
Eleven-year-old Yusuf Shah of England took the Mensa IQ test on a whim — and earned the highest possible score of 162, according to local news reports.
Albert Einstein and Stephen Hawking are estimated to have had IQs of around 160.
“Everyone at school thinks I am very smart, and I have always wanted to know if I was in the top 2% of the people who take the test,” the sixth-grader from Leeds told Yorkshire Evening Post.
Shah, a student at Wigton Moor Primary School, glided through the test, according to the report.
The family celebrated with Nando’s Portuguese-style chicken.
Shah and his parents had decided that he would prepare for the Mensa test while prepping for high-school applications, which included similar material.
“It is a difficult test to prepare for,” his father, Irfan Shah, told the paper. “We just did what we were already doing – nothing specific for the IQ test.”
“I still tell him that ‘your dad is still smarter than you’. … We take it all lightheartedly. Even if you are talented, you have to be the hardest worker,” the dad said.
Yusuf — who wants to study math at Oxford or Cambridge universities — has shown signs of genius since he was very young, Irfan told LeedsLive.
“Even in nursery, we just noticed that he was doing the alphabet and things quicker than other children, but you just thought some kids may pick up the ABCs a bit quicker,” the proud papa said.
“He just has this natural flair for math, and I guess that’s when we sort of realized. Even his school teachers, every time we get school reports, they’re amazing, they say, ‘There’s nothing for us to teach.’ “