A BOY genius has achieved the highest possible score in a Mensa test at the tender age of 12, making him smarter than Albert Einstein and Stephen Hawking.
Agnijo Banerjee, from Dundee, scored 162 in the test – higher than the 160 IQs of Einstein and Hawking.
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: “When he started primary school in Glasgow, the class were given paper to draw on and he wrote Jack and Jill – the whole poem.
“We got called to the school – they said he required special attention.
“I didn’t even know he knew the alphabet then.
“He also learned the whole periodic table when he was six.”
Agnijo’s academic success continued throughout Primary school, 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.
Science
“But until he did the Mensa test we didn’t really know how intelligent he was.”
She continued: “He know he would get into Mensa but he didn’t know he would score so high.
“He”s mostly interested in Maths and science.”
But even Agnijo has to be nagged by his mum to do his homework.
She said: “Even I have to tell him to do his homework, which he usually does in five minutes.
“He’d rather be playing his Nintendo.”
Agnijo is very close to his younger brother Aaryan, who has down’s syndrome and autism.
She added: “He has a younger brother, Aaryan, who has special needs.
They’re very close.
“We’re just as proud of Aaryan – he’s definitely the boss in the house!”
Praise
Agnijo, now a Mensa member, got his Standard grade A while still a Forthill Primary P7 pupil last year.
But Pronita insisted Agnijo got his brains from his father, Dr Subhayu Bandyopadhyay, a consultant in obstetrics in Aberdeen.
She will be getting him books by his favourite author, maths professor Ian Stewart, as a reward.
Grove Academy’s rector, Graham Hutton, heaped praise on Agnijo.
He said the pupil is “exemplifying what we are aiming for from our students, in particular his determination and willingness to learn”.
He was born in India but moved to Scotland with his parents when he was still a baby.
The family first moved to Glasgow then to Dundee where Agnijo’s father worked at Ninewells Hospital.
Mensa, the society for people with high IQs, tested Agnijo in Glasgow last month.
A spokesperson for Mensa said: “I can confirm Agnijo did achieve 162 on the Cattell IIIB IQ test putting him in the top 1% of the population.
“It is the highest score for his age group on that IQ test.”
Planets
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 upwards to take account of the fact he is only 12.
In January this year it was reported three-year-old Sherwyn Sarabi, from Barnsley, South Yorks, had become one of the youngest members of Mensa.
At the age of two, Sherwyn could read, count to 200, and recognise planets in the solar system.
In December last year, the BBC apologised after Mensa guest Peter Bainbridge, an IQ test administrator, said anyone with an IQ of around 60 was “probably a carrot”.
