Great Goans: “Smarter-than-Einstein” Fabiola Mann

Goan origin UK schoolgirl who beat Einstein’s IQ score

This great Goan is only 15, and she recently made national news in the UK. She’s nailed a Mensa score higher than that of Albert Einstein, Stephen Hawking, and Bill Gates, no less. And she has Goan roots! That’s UK schoolgirl Fabiola Mann for you. According to a Times of India report, her mother Rene migrated to the UK after marriage in 1993. A former Margao resident, Rene is a news producer for Associated Press Television Network in London. Fabiola’s father, Anthony Mann, is a British lecturer.

And if you think Fabiola is a ‘nose-buried-in-books’ geek, you couldn’t be more off the mark. Fabiola is a multi-talented youngster. In addition to being a whiz kid at mathematical and intelligence tests, she has a purple belt in karate, is currently learning taekwondo, plays excellent chess, loves to play the piano and guitar, sings beautifully, loves creative writing and … yes there’s more… she is currently working on her first novel. She’s no ordinary kid or giddy-headed teenager, that’s for sure. Hearty congratulations and more power to your brain cells, Fabiola!

Fabulous IQ score of 162

Coming back to Fabiola Mann’s extra-ordinary achievement that places her among the top 1% of the smartest people in the world, she deserves all the attention she is getting. To put things in perspective, her IQ score of 162 is the highest possible score anyone can achieve in the UK and European test. Einstein, Hawking and Gates had scored 160 each. And by the way, the average IQ in the general population of earthlings is believed to be around100.

And if you’re one of those wondering what the heck Mensa is, well, established in England in 1946, Mensa is a society for people with a very high IQ. To be invited to join this super intelligent group, you have to be over 10 years old and on taking the three-hour test prove you have an IQ that would place you in the top 2% of the world’s population. How do they decide this? Your Mensa test score should be at or above the 98th percentile, which is generally around 130.82.

There being no standardized tests for kids below 10, they are psychologically evaluated for their Mensa score. In 2009, British toddler Oscar Wrigly became Mensa’s youngest member when at the age of 2 he was found to match Einstein’s IQ with a score of 160. According to the BBC, this child prodigy demonstrated he could narrate the story of how the Romans built the Temple Of Claudius when he was just 18 months old!

Interestingly, Mensa members also include school dropouts besides brainy people with doctorates. Currently, there are over 100000 Mensans in 100 countries across the world, most of them between 20 and 60 years of age.  British Mensa has a membership of around 22,700. Mensa USA has approx. 50,000 members of which 2600 are under 18 years old. In contrast, the total number of Indian Mensans stands at 947, though Mensa India’s current members add up to 714.

An online mini Mensa IQ test for you

If any of you are itching to get a fair idea of what your IQ level must be like by Mensa’s standards, how about taking a crack at a much simpler online mini Mensa IQ test that’s a sort of sampler? Here’s the link: http://www.mensa.org/workout.php

So go ahead and test your IQ. Who knows, you could surprise yourself. I gave it a shot and was very pleased with my 70% score. Not that this will help me get even a toe in the Mensa door, but it was certainly worth trying. And for those of you who fancy your kids or grandkids to be Mensans in the making, do encourage them to sit for the test. It costs only Rs 75 in India.

A final tidbit of information before I sign off. I had read in another news report that the names of Fabiola Mann’s Margao-based grandparents are Palikaran George and Teresa. I can see the Portuguese/Goan link in the name Teresa. But Palikaran sounds Malayali to me. Made me wonder if Fabiola has dual Indian roots that can be traced back to Goa and Kerala. Maybe some Goan newspapers could get to the root of this?

Cheers!