Rajgauri Pawar has roots in Pune district’s Baramati. Rajgauri Pawar has roots in Pune district’s Baramati.

At 12, Rajgauri Pawar has scored an incredible 162 in the British Mensa IQ test. The figure beats Albert Einstein’s estimated score and that of Professor Stephen Hawking, who scored 160. Rajgauri’s is a top 1 per cent score, landing her the elite British Mensa membership for high IQ talents across the globe. “I am just feeling on top of the world and can’t explain in words. It’s an honour for me to represent India on foreign soil and achieve such a feat.” the 12-year-old told The Indian Express via email.

Her elated father Dr Surajkumar Pawar, who is a research scientist at the University of Manchester and hails from Baramati in Pune district, said that at present, only 20,000 such individuals exist across the globe; out of which hardly 1,500 are children, who fall in the category of 2% percentile. “My daughter with a top 1% score leads the tally, making her one of the youngest to achieve such a feat,” Pawar said.

Rajgauri admitted she was rather nervous before the test . “But it was fine and I’m really pleased to have done so well,” she said via email. “I would like to pursue medicine in the future and am also inclined towards topics including Physics, Astronomy and Environment,” she said, adding that swimming, netball and chess were among her favourite sports.

Rajgauri further said: “I was preparing for entrance exams to secondary schools. I secured admission at Altrincham Girls Grammar School, which is one of the coveted institutions in the UK, and my parents suggested that I attempt the British Mensa IQ test. Anyone above the age of 10.5 years can take the test. As it was something different and was like a competition across all age groups, it sounded interesting and worth focusing on.”

The preparation does not include much of the academic syllabus, but is more of an aptitude test, evaluating the non-verbal reasoning of the candidate. “Hence, it was challenging. The test was kind of a mixed bag, easy at the beginning and got tough at the end. The key difficulty was completing the test in time. So you are basically judged based on your skill set to manage time and the correctness of your answers,” the 12-year-old said.

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