Bengaluru: 11-year-old Saanya Verma took a shot at the Mensa Test after a heated debate with her father, Sunil about whether or not IQ has any correlation to age. They stumbled upon the Mensa Test as they did their research and Saanya decided to give it a go.
Not only was she proved right, this exceptional young girl also managed to obtain the maximum possible scores, putting her in the top one percentile across the globe. A Mensa spokesperson said, “Saanya is one of the youngest to achieve a score of 162 in the supervised test, as it can only be taken by people over the age of 10-and-a-half.”
Saanya, whose family hails from Bengaluru, lives in the North West area of London with her parents, where she is a Grade 7 student. Her mother Sunita said, “Saanya has been a very inquisitive, self-driven, confident child with an eagerness to learn. She thrives on challenges and has been a consistent performer not merely in academics but also extra curricular activities.”
“Saanya has always surprised me with her questions and her reasoning skills have put me in situations where I have felt overwhelmed,” said her father, Sunil, who is a banker by profession.
Sunil and his daughter spend a fair amount of time programming – they’re both avid coders and discussing science and robotics. To put her achievements in perspective, 2015 statistics showed that students getting Level 6 were close to 0% for reading, about 4% for SPAG and nearly 9% for Math.
Saanya with her parents
A voracious reader, she loves The Hunger Games, Isaac Asimov's The Winds of Change and the Harry Potter series. “I have even considered being a writer,” said Saanya. “I have taken part in competitions before and won them, so it's definitely an option!”
All this apart, Saanya also has a deep love for music, with a special affinity for Bollywood and Western Classical. “I love to sing, I learn it because I enjoy understanding the technique,” she explained. “I also played the violin as a child. I like gymnastics, too, although, I must admit, I'm not too good at it!”
Although she is keeping her options open about her future, Saanya does find herself inclined towards Robotics, Bio Genetics and space exploration. “In my own time, though,” she said, suddenly sounding her age again, “I like to play on my X-Box and watch some TV as well.”
