

Meet Zhou Tian from Heze city in Shandong province. He’s only 14 years old and was recently admitted into the University of Science and Technology of China, one of the nation’s most elite universities.

Zhou just finished his first year in high school. He earned an incredible score of 699 on this year’s gaokao, even higher than this girl genius who got admitted into Fudan University last year. However, at first, Zhou wasn’t ready to accept the admission. He says that he just thought to give the gaokao a shot, and wasn’t really taking it seriously, 21cn reports.



Ever since he was little, Zhou has been considered to be a genius. When he was just 3 years old, he could recognize over 3,000 Chinese characters. By the age of 5, he started to show an interest in mathematics and became adept at adding, subtracting, multiplying and dividing.

Last year, he won second place in the national high school math competition. Just second place? On the math portion of the gaokao, he scored 149 out of 150 points. Only 149?



Zhou’s parents attribute their son’s brilliance to his diligence. “Zhou Tian may study a little bit harder than other kids,” his father told reporters. “He likes reading a lot and has formed his own good studying habits.”

“He likes being ahead of schedule,” his mother agreed. “He studied junior high courses on his own when he was in primary school, and he completed senior high school courses in junior high.”

After more thorough consideration, Zhou has in fact decided to attend university this year. He will start later this month. To prepare himself, he has been previewing some of the upcoming course material. He says that he plans to study hard in university and try to become a mathematician.

Apparently, he doesn’t know that you don’t have to actually enroll in a university to become a mathematician.

Genius is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration. Still, if you lack that 1%, don’t forget about the other 99%.

By Sophie Wang

[Images via 21cn]

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