英國數學天才女孩十歲上大學

At first glance Esther Okade seems like a normal 10-year-old. She loves dressing up as Elsa from "Frozen," playing with Barbie dolls and going to the park or shopping.

第一眼看上去，十歲的埃絲特·奧卡德好像和同齡孩子沒什麼不一樣。她喜歡打扮成《冰雪奇緣》裏的艾爾莎，喜歡芭比娃娃，也喜歡去公園和商場。

But what makes the British-Nigerian youngster stand out is the fact that she's also a university undergraduate。

但與衆不同的是，這個尼日利亞裔英國小女孩其實已是一名大學本科生了。

Esther, from Walsall, an industrial town in the UK's West Midlands region, is one of the country's youngest college freshmen。

埃絲特，來自英國西米德蘭茲郡的工業城市沃爾索爾，已經成爲了英國年齡最小的大學生之一。

The talented 10-year-old enrolled at the Open University, a UK-based distance learning college, in January and is already top of the class, having recently scored 100% in a recent exam。

今年1月份，這位10歲的天才少女進入了英國的一所遠程教育大學——開放大學。她現在已經在班裏名列前茅，最近一次考試得了滿分。

"It's so interesting. It has the type of maths I love. It's real maths -- theories, complex numbers, all that type of stuff," she giggles. "It was super easy. My mum taught me in a nice way."

“大學很有趣。這裏有我喜歡的那種數學，那種真正的數學——理論、複雜的數字，諸如此類，”她咯咯地笑着說，“這非常簡單，都是我媽媽之前教得好。”

She adds: "I want to (finish the course) in two years. Then I'm going to do my PhD in financial maths when I'm 13. I want to have my own bank by the time I'm 15 because I like numbers and I like people and banking is a great way to help people."

她還說：“我想在兩年內讀完本科課程，然後13歲時去讀金融數學的博士。我希望，到15歲的時候擁有自己的銀行，因爲我喜歡數字，也喜歡人們，而銀行可以很好地幫助人們。”

And in case people think her parents have pushed her into starting university early, Esther emphatically disagrees。

或許有人認爲埃絲特是在父母的壓力下才早早進入大學，她斷然否認這一說法。

"I actually wanted to start when I was seven. But my mum was like, "you're too young, calm down." After three years of begging, mother Efe finally agreed to explore the idea。

“其實我7歲開始就想要上大學了，但是我媽媽說，‘你還太小，別急’，我懇求了三年，媽媽埃菲才終於同意。”

Esther has always jumped ahead of her peers. She sat her first Math GSCE exam, a British high school qualification, at Ounsdale School in Wolverhampton at just six, where she received a C-grade. A year later, she outdid herself and got the A-grade she wanted. Then last year she scored a B-grade when she sat the Math A-level exam。

埃絲特一直都比同齡人學得快。她6歲就在伍爾弗漢普頓的Ounsdale學校第一次參加英國中學普通中等教育(GSCE)數學考試，得了C。一年後，她再次參加考試，拿到了她想要的A。去年，她在中學高級水平(A-level)數學考試中拿到了B。

Esther's mother noticed her daughter's flair for figures shortly after she began homeschooling her at the age of three. Initially, Esther's parents had enrolled her in a private school but after a few short weeks, the pair began noticing changes in the usually-vibrant youngster。

埃絲特3歲時，她的媽媽開始在家教她，很快就察覺了女兒在數字方面上的天賦。最初，埃絲特的父母讓女兒上了一所私立學校，但短短几周後，他們就開始注意到，活躍的女兒有了變化。

Efe says: "One day we were coming back home and she burst out in tears and she said 'I don't ever want to go back to that school -- they don't even let me talk!'

埃菲說：“一天我們回家的路上，她突然大哭，說‘我不想去那裏上學了——他們都不讓我說話！’”

"In theUK, you don't have to start school until you are five. Education is not compulsory until that age so I thought OK, we'll be doing little things at home until then. Maybe by the time she's five she will change her mind."

“在英國，五歲之前可以不去上學。在五歲之前，教育並不是強制性的。所以我想她可以先在家學點東西，等她到五歲時，她可能就會改變想法了。”

Efe started by teaching basic number skills but Esther was miles ahead. By four, her natural aptitude for maths had seen the eager student move on to algebra and quadratic equations。

埃菲一開始教女兒一些基本的算術，但埃絲特的能力大大地超前了。這位求知慾旺盛的學生，4歲時已經學習代數和二次方程了，她的數學天賦嶄露無疑。

And Esther isn't the only maths prodigy in the family. Her younger brother Isaiah, 6, will soon be sitting his first A-level exam in June。

埃絲特並不是家裏唯一的一個數學天才，她的弟弟艾賽亞，年僅6歲，即將在6月份參加中學高級水平考試。