Every day after school, Charu Jangid would settle down to three or four hours of study for her exams.
Charu, 15, was determined to achieve as good a result as her elder sister, who obtained 88 per cent in her recent tests.
Yesterday, all the hard work paid off when she discovered she had averaged 95.8 per cent across the five subjects of her grade 10 Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) India exams, making her one of the country’s top-scoring pupils.
“I couldn’t believe it at first,” said Charu, who got up early to check her results online.
“I kept refreshing the internet page. I was hoping for above 90 per cent, so this is pretty good.”
Charu, who was born in Oman and moved to the UAE six years ago, had the added pressure of living up to family expectations. Her mother, Renuka, is a teacher at Millennium School, Dubai, which she attends.
Brains seem to run in Charu’s family, since her sister Prachi scored 88 per cent in her grade 12 CBSE exams, the results of which were published last Friday.
About 4,000 pupils in the UAE took the grade 10 or grade 12 exams in March.
Unlike many of her peers, Charu, who hopes to become a chemical or electrical engineer, did not have extra tuition outside school.
Parents often pay Dh250 (US$68) a month per subject for additional lessons, focusing on the pupils’ weaker subjects.
Another youngster with cause for celebration was Shaziya Kalam, who secured an average of 96.2 per cent.
The pupil at Our Own English High School in Dubai described the score as “mind-blowing”.
“I definitely wanted about 95 per cent, but this was a big surprise,” said Shaziya, who scored 100 per cent in mathematics.
“The exams went very well. There was a new pattern of questioning. It was not just learning from the book, there was a lot of application as well.”
Shaziya, 16, is planning to continue at Our Own English High School before applying to study medicine in India. Her ambition is to become an ophthalmologist.
On average, Shaziya would work for an extra four to five hours an evening, as well as at weekends.
“I would work in the morning and afternoon and take the evening off,” she said.
The best student or “topper” in the capital was Reshma Sree, who averaged 96 per cent.
She was one of eight youngsters at Our Own English High School in Abu Dhabi to score more than 90 per cent overall.
George Mathew, the head teacher, said the results were “wonderful” and owed much to the extra tuition given by teachers after lessons finished.
“They stay back on rotation,” he said. “That’s the reason we have such good results.”
The topper at the Abu Dhabi Indian School was Manasa Menon, 15, who averaged 95 per cent.
Her father, Satesh Menon, a sales manager, said he had never expected his daughter to score as well as she had.
“She is good in her studies and we were expecting it to be in the 90s, but not this much,” he said. “She found it a little bit tough.”
Mr Menon said Manasa would spend her final two years of school in India to take advantage of the extra training available for those trying to get on to medical or engineering courses.
“We have institutions for this special entrance exam training that are not available in the UAE,” he said. “There are some places here, but not many.”
A total of 765,095 students took the grade 10 exams around the world and to pass, students needed to score at least 35 per cent in all five papers.
The overall pass rate was 87.08 per cent, an increase of 2.64 per cent compared with last year.
Boys achieved an 86.46 per cent pass rate, while 87.96 per cent of girls passed.