Pakistani-born British girl Mahnoor Cheema has passed an astonishing total of 34 subjects at the General Certificate of Secondary Education (GCSE) level – setting a new record in the history of the United Kingdom as well as internationally.

16-year-old Mahnoor Cheema passed 17 subjects with A* grades as a private candidate in Year 10 and on Thursday she added 17 more subjects – taking the total count to 34 and establishing a new milestone, marking the highest number of subjects ever taken by a student in the history of UK and EU GCSEs.

Mahnoor Cheema’s father Barrister Usman Cheema, and mother Mrs Tayyaba Cheema, hail from Lahore in Pakistan. They moved to the UK in 2006 in order to pursue further education at Lincoln’s Inn and SOAS, respectively, and Mahnoor joined Langley Grammar School in West London in Class-5 after initially studying 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 a 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.