THIS year's top student in the Primary School Leaving Examination (PSLE) could barely speak any English when she moved here from China in 2006 with her family.
Qiu Biqing, 13, from Qifa Primary School, achieved an aggregate score of 290, with four A*s and a Distinction in Higher Chinese.
Her father, Mr Qiu Guo Hua, 45, is a research fellow at the National University of Singapore, and her mother, Madam Xie Xiaojin, 42, is a research assistant there. They both work in a physiology lab.
The top Indian pupil this year is Muhammad Saad Siddiqui from Anglo-Chinese School (Primary), and the top Malay pupil is Syafiqah Nabilah Bte Shamshera from Raffles Girls' Primary School.
Biqing said that she improved her English by reading a lot, and not being afraid to speak aloud even if she made mistakes.
She has a place in Raffles Girls' School through the Direct Schools Admission process and hopes to become a lawyer or a novelist.