Auckland St Peter’s College student is top of the world in religious studies

By RNZ

Auckland’s St Peters College Year 12 student Christian Domilies got the highest score in religious studies in the world for his Cambridge exams.

About 1.5 million students from 150 countries and more than 6000 schools enter Cambridge exams every year. Annually, it hands out about 2,750,000 grades globally.

He has been given a badge and certificate to commemorate his achievement.

“It feels great actually,” Christian told Radio New Zealand’s Checkpoint.

“It wasn’t the subject I was hoping to get top in the world for, or top in New Zealand even.

“I was happy with top in New Zealand, but to get top in the world in a subject, that’s honestly really, really good and I am super proud of myself and everyone who helped me.

“I’m wearing my summer uniform, so I can’t wear the badge on my shirt, because it’ll come off, but I’ll probably wear it on my blazer in winter.”

Christian said he felt nervous standing in front of all the other students at assembly when the principal of the Catholic boys’ school brought him up twice – once when they found out he was top of the country, and again when they discovered he was in fact top of the world.

He said he had not really put much thought into the link of religious studies with his name, but he was religious after all.

He chose to write about Islam and Christianity in his paper.

“So there were two papers, the first paper was two compulsory three-part questions and one of them you had to show your knowledge of a certain topic. For example, in Christianity, their pilgrimages, like the Vatican.

“And then the second part was to explain and relate it to a certain issue of today, and the third question was answering a scenario, to prove your point.”

For the first paper, he thought he was nailing it but for the second he felt the pressure of time.

“To be honest, I had to write my final three-part question in under 15 minutes, which isn’t exactly recommended.

“I felt really nervous and I was thinking to myself that this would probably be an exam that I’d get maybe low 90s [points], but I actually got 97 so I was super surprised.”

He did not know what the three marks missing were for.

His friend also got close in marks, getting about 95 or 96, he said.

Christian’s study method involved reading all the materials, listening back to the content, and then doing past papers available.

He received A-plus in every subject, except in economics where he still got an A. (The Cambridge International A Level’s highest grade is A-plus).

“It wasn’t as bad as AS Maths, that’s the advanced version, I took it in Year 11 when you’re supposed to take it in Year 12 and I got a C in that so it was a bit disappointing but I dropped maths this year.”

Christian said he was thinking of doing law at university but he was still undecided.

“I’d like to get top [marks] in classics [this year], because that’s one of my favourite subjects, and probably also history . . . I’d be fine with any subject.”

– RNZ