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Eleven-year-old Anushka Dixit is now officially among the top 1% of people in the world in terms of intelligence. She notched up a score of 162 on the Mensa IQ test, two points more than physicist Stephen Hawking’s score. A score of 140 is considered a “genius IQ”.

Dixit took her test at the University of East London on April 20, the Metro reported. A resident of the city’s Barkingside area, she is now eligible for membership of Mensa. Also known as the “High IQ Society”, membership of the association is open to people who score at the 98th percentile or higher on a standardised, supervised intelligence test.

“Initially, I was very nervous as there were lots of people way older than me,” Dixit said. She said she had been challenged by the non-verbal reasoning section of the test also with time when she had to solve “28 questions in four minutes”.

According to her mother Arti, who hails from Faridabad and studied in Gwalior, Anushka Dixit has always been a bright child. She started talking when she was just six months old by “copying words from television advertisements”. Her long list of accomplishments includes memorising the entire periodic table in just 40 minutes.

The 11-year-old dreams of becoming a doctor when she grows up.

Several students of Indian-origin have previously performed extremely well in the test, hitting the highest possible score of 162. They include 13-year-old Dhruv Garg, who appeared for the test in 2017, and 11-year-old Snnehal Vijay, who took the test in 2018.