Yusuf Shah, who is eleven years old, received the highest score attainable on a Mensa intelligence test—162—and is now being acclaimed as a genius. He outperforms physicists Stephen Hawking and Albert Einstein, whose IQs were both reportedly around 160.
Shah ranked in the top 2% of the population, according to Mensa, an international organization for people with high IQs, which confirmed his score to NBC News and said he “had remarkable potential.” The organization invites everyone who scores in the 98th percentile to join.
The Yorkshire Evening Post, the local newspaper in Shah’s county, reported that his parents had urged him to take the test without any particular preparation.
The 11-year-old from Leeds, in northern England, told the Post, “Everyone at school thinks I am extremely smart, and I have always wanted to know if I was in the top two percent of the people who take the exam.” According to his family, the young mathematician is presently focused on applying to secondary schools, but in his spare time, he likes to do sudoku puzzles and Rubik’s Cubes.
Having a certificate that is for and about me makes me feel special, he remarked. Also, “I never imagined that I would be in the headlines.”
Irfan Shah, Shah’s father, told the Washington Post that when Shah was 7 years old, he came upon a mathematical anomaly that baffled him. The family got in touch with a math professor at Cambridge University, who gave Shah a justification for the rule, which has since been known as “Yusuf’s Square Rule” at their home.
Shah’s parents, however, claimed that in addition to developing his aptitudes, they are also teaching him how to cultivate his work ethic and social life.
Shah’s father told the Post, “I still tell him that ‘your dad is still brighter than you. “We take it all in good fun. Even if you have talent, you must put in the most effort.
