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Elaine Yau

The scores are in for Estephe and Perrine Corlin, 10-year-old twins nurtured by their Hong Kong 'tiger mum' and maths whizz Horatio Boedihardo, who were awaiting the results of an international exam for 16-year-olds: straight As.
The children and their mother, Rosalind Corlin, were elated yesterday as they checked the results by computer around 8am and saw the As flash across the screen.
'They are excited and called their dad, who is in Shanghai, immediately,' the Malaysian mother said.
The children of mixed Malaysian and French descent - already swimming champions, judo brown belts, sailing veterans and chess adepts  - scored As for Paper II and IV in maths in the International General Certificate of Secondary Education (IGCSE) offered by the University of Cambridge.
Official certificates will be mailed to them next week by the Hong Kong Examinations and Assessment Authority, which was authorised by Cambridge to conduct the text.
'The two papers are 'extended courses' which are more difficult than Paper I and III,' Rosalind Corlin said.
She said they would take on IGCSE's physics in May and additional maths in November. The children started preparing for those exams after finishing the maths test last November.
'We will take chemistry next year,' Corlin said.  'We do revisions on alternate days, for 45 minutes during the week and longer on weekends. We couldn't do it every day because of practice for competitions, but we will catch up [on weekends].'
Her children have won numerous international and local competitions in swimming and judo.
'My children were brought up to like competitions,' she said. 'They like to test themselves. There's no point to do something without a challenge. They have to have an objective.'
She thanked Boedihardo, 20, for encouraging the children to take up the exam challenge.
'Without his inspiration, we wouldn't have thought about doing something like this.'
Hongkonger Boedihardo - one of Oxford's youngest PhD students when he started his maths doctorate in 2008 and elder brother of child prodigy March who is the youngest local university entrant - is currently in Oxford doing his final year of studies.  
He says he will come back to Hong Kong in December and  wants to inspire  other kids. 'To all children who wonder whether they can achieve the same, I [want to say yes] they can. 
'Borrow an IGCSE maths textbook from the library, spend half an hour to do its exercises every day, then take the exam and get the grade. Everyone can do it.'



'Tiger' twins score straight As in Cambridge University maths tests