How many different ways could you combine three numbers below to add up to 60'2 3 5 10 15 20 25 50*Lydia Sebastian knows the answer.In fact, the 12-year-old girl from Langham, England, knows all the answers,because Lydia just received a perfect score of 162 on one of the world's most challenging intelligencetests ' theCattell III B papergiven by Mensa, the high IQ society.The test asked her to complete analogies, define lesser-known words, and solve logic puzzles.Lydia's feat of cognitive firepower puts her in the top 1% of test-takers. The score easily clears the bar for acceptanceintoMensa, which famously accepts only people who score in the top 2% of IQ tests.The score also means Lydia's IQ places her in famous company. In 1926, two psychologists estimated the IQs of 300 geniuses, putting both Albert Einstein and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart at a score of 160, even if the two men had never taken a standard, formal test.Lydia's own test came after much pleading to her parents over the last year, who finally caved and let her have a chanceat Birkbeck College, London. Lydia finished with minutes to spare, calling the test "easier than I expected.""I gave it my best shot really," she recently told The Guardian.According to Lydia's father, Arun Sebastian, he knew his daughter was smart, but not thatsmart. She began speaking at only a few months old and was reading novelsby the time she was a toddler. At the ripe age of 12,she's blasted through the seven books of the "Harry Potter" series a full three times. In school, Lydia earns straight As.Those skills paid off during the 150-minute test, which primarily measured Lydia's verbal reasoning ability."When I heard she had the maximum possible mark I was overwhelmed and so was my wife," Arun Sebastian told The Daily Mail. "To be honest, I didn't really believe it."British Mensa has approximately 20,000 members, 1,500 of whom are under 18, all ranking at or above the top 2% in intelligence. Pretty soon it will have one more.But IQ tests aren't the whole measure of intelligence. As University of Pennsylvania psycholigist Scott Kaufman argues in his book "Ungifted: Intelligence Redefined,"no standardized test ' from IQ to SAT ' can capture the range of a person's mental faculties.Then there's the class factor. Lydia's father is a radiologist atColchester general hospital while her mother is a chemist. While Lydia's inborn talents can't be denied, neither can the research that ties wealth to reading comprehension. A famous study conducted in 2003 found kids of the richest families were exposed to 30 million more words by their 3rd birthday than kids from the poorest families, setting them on a life course bound for braininess.Whenever you find a prodigy, in other words, chances are there's a mountain of support behind them.And if you were curious about the sample problem above, the answer is four ways: (20, 20, 20)(25, 20, 15)(25, 25, 10)(50, 5, 5). But you knew that, right'Join the conversation about this storyNOW WATCH: How to know if you're smart
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