10-Year-Old Girl Invited To Join Mensa After Dyslexia Test Revealed She Has Top 1% Iq

10-Year-Old Girl Invited To Join Mensa After Dyslexia Test Revealed She Has Top 1% Iq

Mr. and Mrs. O’Malley-Flack might have been anxious while they waited for their daughter to complete her dyslexia test.

The 10-year-old had had trouble spelling, and it was recommended she take an examination, but as it turned out, she had something else entirely—a prodigious IQ.

Poppy O’Malley-Flack, from the English county of Kent has an IQ of 136, putting her in the top one-percentile of all Britons. The three-hour test concluded that she has exceptional reasoning and problem-solving skills, leaving her mother Lucy in shock.

“We never expected to come out of a dyslexic test and the lady say her reasoning skills and intelligence were exceptionally high,” she told England’s Southwest News Service.

The surprise wasn’t because Poppy wasn’t a clever girl, but rather because she seemed to self-select for and gravitate to, the arts.

“We were as shocked I think as Poppy was. She had never been the type of child you thought was gifted or very academic… However, she is very logical and has good reasoning skills and is very good at problem solving. We have always known that. We always knew she was quite grown up for her age.”

After receiving the results, Mrs. O’Malley-Flack approached the grand old IQ society Mensa in hopes of getting Poppy into the program with other gifted children. Shortly after sending off the IQ test results, they received an email accepting her into the prestigious club.

“We were absolutely chuffed and really proud of her and I think she was really proud of herself,” Lucy said. “She is the most humble child you will ever meet, but she is really enjoying this prestige.”

The Mensa High-IQ Society has been around for over 100 years, and focuses on welcoming those extremely gifted minds among us into a space of collaboration and camaraderie. The American chapter of Mensa boasts 50,000 members of the over 150,000, located in 90+ countries worldwide.

Isaac Asimov, Commander Chris Hadfield, Steve Martin, and John McAfee were all members of Mensa, along with the inventor of the mobile phone and author of The Clan of the Cave Bear novels.

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Poppy is hoping to get into grammar school but has no career aspirations beyond that yet, though her mother suspects that she will end up doing something in the realm of science.

“I don’t think Poppy is going to go into your normal 9-5 job. She will be going into something scientific or arty. Something that requires detail. It is a perfect example of how a learning difference and giftedness can co-exist. While she might have struggles with spelling she has extraordinary reasoning skills.”

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According to BBC Test The Nation data, the average IQ in Britain is around 100—and any number above 135 puts you in the top percentile.

Both Albert Einstein and Stephen Hawking never took official tests, but are estimated to have had IQs around 160.