Minn. Boy, 7, Takes Top Score In National Test

MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) -- By age 2, he was doing multiplication. By 5, fractions. Now at 7-years-old Lex Byrne has placed first among thousands in a national test.

The test was administered by Northwestern University, located outside of Chicago. Byrne placed first in his class, and his scores beat those of the most gifted and talented 6th graders.

Aristea Brady, a Northwestern University graduate, met up with Byrne for a little battle of the brains.

Like most 7-year-olds, Byrne thinks girls still have cooties.

"A lot of the boys say [girls] talk way too much about cats," Byrne said.

But what separates Byrne from most boys is that he can tell you the equation for the area of a circle or the equation for slope. He goes to Cyprus Classical Academy in Burnsville, Minn., where his classes include algebra, literature composition and advanced geometry.

Byren put his math skills to the test when he took a national test, called Explore, which is given to highly gifted students. He scored perfect in math, and placed first among a class of thousands.

Byrne studied by using ACT practice questions -- questions Brady attempted to answer Wednesday. While Brady did pass the test when it came to deconstructing a sentence, it was a different story when it came to the algebra equations.

Byrne's father, Josh, says not to worry: Brady is in good company.

"I have a Master's degree in Computer Science, and he does those problems much faster than I do," Josh Byrne said.

While Byrne's parents know he's on a path to be one of the youngest kids in college, they say, for right now, all they want for their brilliant boy is balance.

"I really want for him to have the opportunity to make that choice for himself, if he wants to do that," mother Luci Byrne said.

Byrne isn't sure what he wants to be when he grows up. At the moment, he's torn between being a mathematician and an engineer.