LONDON: Mahnoor Cheema, a 16-year-old British Pakistani student, broke both national and international records by passing an astounding total of 34 courses at the General Certificate of Secondary Education (GCSE) level.
Mahnoor has appeared in the highest number of subjects ever taken by a student in the history of UK and EU GCSEs. She had passed 17 subjects with A* grades as a private candidate in Year 10. However, on Thursday she added 17 more subjects to the bag — taking the total count to 34 and establishing a new milestone.
Mahnoor Cheema told Geo News about her journey to success. Both Mahnoor Cheema’s mother, Mrs. Tayyaba Cheema, and her father, Barrister Usman Cheema, are natives of Lahore, Pakistan. In order to finish their education at Lincoln’s Inn and SOAS, respectively, they immigrated to the UK in 2006. Mahnoor enrolled in Langley Grammar School in West London in Class 5 after completing his early studies at a private Lahore school.
The exceptional Pakistani origin student has set other records too. Apart from her academia, Mahnoor’s IQ has also been recognised on a global scale, at 161 on the Mensa IQ Test, ahead of Albert Einstein, who is believed to have possessed an IQ of 160. With this, she has earned her place among the top 1 percent of the world’s population for intellectual ability. She has also completed ABRSM Music Theory and Practical at Grade 8, with distinction. She is one of the youngest individuals in the UK to be pursuing a music diploma. She has also been shortlisted in the prestigious John Locke essay competition, with the awards ceremony in Oxford later this year.
