Dundee schoolboy has higher IQ than Einstein

By NEIL POORAN
Published on 09/03/2013 01:13

A TWELVE-year-old boy has achieved the highest possible score in a Mensa test, making him smarter than Albert Einstein and Stephen Hawking.

Agnijo Banerjee, from Dundee, scored 162 in the test – higher than the 160 IQs recorded for the famous scientists.

The first-year pupil at Grove Academy, Broughty Ferry, has already got an A pass in Standard Grade maths and hopes to get his maths Higher in May – four years ahead of schedule.

His proud mother, Pronita, 44, said he showed extraordinary intelligence from an early age.

She said: “He is an extremely gifted maths student who has won three top gold awards in the Scottish Mathematical Challenge in three successive years.

“He has also performed extremely well when he took his standard grade exam while still in primary seven, almost four years before his peer group, achieving an A pass.

“We knew from an early age he was very bright, at the age of four he had posters of dinosaurs and he memorised all the information from that.

“But until he did the Mensa test we didn’t really know how intelligent he was.”

Agnijo got his Standard grade A while at Forthill Primary, Broughty Ferry, last year.

His mother claims Agnijo got his brains from his father, Dr Subhayu Bandyopadhyay, a consultant in obstetrics in Aberdeen, but joked how her son’s favourite activity was “playing with Nintendo”.

Last night, the schoolboy’s head teacher, Graham Hutton, praised the young intellectual. He said Agnijo was “exemplifying what we are aiming for from our students, in particular his determination and willingness to learn”.

The schoolboy was born in India and moved to Scotland when he was a baby. He has a younger brother, Aaryan, who has Down’s Syndrome and autism.

The family first moved to Glasgow then to Dundee, where Agnijo’s father worked at Ninewells Hospital.

Mensa, the world’s largest and oldest society for people with high IQs, said it tested Agnijo in Glasgow last month. A spokesman said: “I can confirm Agnijo did achieve 162 on the Cattell IIIB IQ test putting him in the top 1 per cent of the population. It is the highest score for his age group on that IQ test.”

The Mensa test is designed so that an “averagely intelligent” person would score 100.

Adults can only achieve a maximum result of 161 in the Catttell IIIB IQ test due to the way it is calculated. Agnijo’s score has been adjusted up to take account of his age.

In January this year it was reported three-year-old Sherwyn Sarabi, from Barnsley, South Yorkshire, had become one of the youngest members of Mensa. At the age of two, Sherwyn could read, count to 200, and recognise planets.