The story here is about a bright 11 year old girl getting the top score in Mensa. Saanya has scored the maximum possible scores in the Mensa Test (Cattell IIIB scale– 162 and Culture Fair scale – 142) which has put her squarely in the top one percentile across the globe.
Mensa is the High IQ society. Mensa 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 – e.g. verbal, numerical, etc. – Mensa Supervised test sessions currently comprise two test papers. One is diagrammatical while the other measures largely verbal reasoning ability. A top 2% score on either would result in an invitation to join Mensa.
“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 has confirmed.
Saanya was one of the thirty eight from her school in Year 6 of 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 1184 children invited to take part in the bonus round. Saanya was one amongst only 153 pupils who have been thereafter awarded a silver medal. (Only 530 pupils out of those that entered the bonus round were awarded a medal.)
She is a voracious reader so has quite a few favourite authors/books few being Harry Potter Series, Hunger Games Series, Winds of Change and The Alex Rider Series.
Saanya’s mother is Oriya and Saanya’s parents studied in Rourkela. Her father, Sunil Verma, a banker by profession, spends a reasonable amount of time with her discussing science and robotics and often concludes that “Saanya has always surprised me with her questions and her reasoning skills have often put me in situations where I have felt overwhelmed. We are proud of her and are constantly challenged by her”.
Saanya’s mother Sunita Pati Verma, a HR & Recruitment professional says ” 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.”
Also to add Saanya’s Robot won at the science fair, she has been selected for the final at Public Speaking and for the regional French spelling test. Also she has developed a keen interest in chess and is doing professional singing.