By Jennani Durai

THREE years ago, Qiu Biqing barely spoke a word of English when she came here with her parents from China.

Yesterday, the Qifa Primary School pupil, now 13 and a Singapore PR, emerged as the top scorer in this year's Primary School Leaving Examination (PSLE) with an aggregate score of 290.

Not only did she ace the English-language paper with an A*, she bagged that stellar grade for mathematics, science and for Chinese as a second language. On top of that, the daughter of Chinese nationals with research positions at the National University of Singapore (NUS) scored a distinction in Higher Chinese.

What a difference three years made.

Recalling 2006, when she was new here, she said: 'I couldn't understand a lot of what my classmates and teachers were saying.'

When she enrolled in Qifa Primary, the West Coast school wanted to put her in Primary 2 because of her poor English.

But her parents, Mr Qiu Guo Hua, 45, a research fellow in NUS' department of physiology, and Madam Xie Xiaojin, 42, a research assistant in the same department, convinced the school to let her start at Primary 3.

It was a struggle. Biqing, the elder of two children, barely made it through her first English examination.

She even had trouble understanding what a thermometer was when the time came for pupils to take their temperature.

Two things that year sparked her turnaround: Mr Rajasingam Kumariah becoming her form teacher and a friend introducing her to Charlotte's Web, the children's classic by American writer E.B. White.

She explained that since her form teacher spoke no Mandarin, she was forced to speak to him in English - and being forced to overcome that hesitation to speak the language was instrumental.

'I was encouraged by my friends and teachers to speak English, even if I couldn't speak with good grammar,' she said.

Charlotte's Web, on the other hand, inspired her love of reading, and she now reads avidly and counts the Harry Potter series and novels by Jodi Picoult among her favourites.

Biqing's Primary 6 form teacher N. Uma Rani described her as one who is always up for a challenge, but humble about her talents.

'Her classmates all love her because she is so grounded and always willing to help,' she said.

The other top pupils in this year's exam included Syafiqah Nabilah Shamshera from Raffles Girls' Primary school, whose score of 286 made her the top Malay pupil; Muhammad Saad Siddiqui from Anglo-Chinese School (Primary) was the top Indian pupil with 277.

The top Eurasian pupil was Samantha Annabelle Neubronner, also from Raffles Girls' Primary School, with 271.

These top pupils had applied for admission to their secondary schools before the PSLE under the Direct Schools Admission exercise.

Biqing, Syafiqah and Samantha are headed for Raffles Girls' School; Muhammad Saad is overseas and uncontactable.

Meanwhile, Biqing has the little matter of a trip to Australia to look forward to.

When last year's PSLE results were released, her dad had joked that if she could get her picture in the newspaper for being the top pupil when her time came, he would take her to Australia.

He never imagined it would happen, he said yesterday.

'But I promised, so I will do this,' he said laughing.

This article was first published in The Straits Times.