Twins clock up 18 Grade As

Two sets of identical twin sisters from the same Essex school lead a remarkable list of success stories today as thousands of A-level students nervously open envelopes to discover their share of a record rise to a 94.3 per cent pass rate.

Today's results have reignited the annual debate over exam standards, with critics claiming the A-level "gold standard" is being dumbed down.

The Government, on the other hand, claims the pass rate has risen because weaker candidates are dropping more difficult subjects after AS-level and are not taking them on to A-level.

Certainly for some students, today was a day for celebration, among them a refugee, an 11-year-old prodigy who has been taking computers apart with a hammer and a screwdriver since he was five, a dyslexic teenager and a pensioner, aged 76.

Twins Bahar and Negar Mirshekar-Syahkal, 18, from Colchester County High School for Girls, each achieved five Grade As in identical subjects: maths, biology, physics, chemistry and general studies. They are now both going to Cambridge University to read medicine.

Bahar said: "I am really excited and really pleased, and it hasn't sunk in. Negar has wanted to be a doctor since she was very tiny and I steered away from that because I did not want to do it as well. But I decided that's what I wanted to do now."

Negar said: "It does help when you are twins because if I don't understand things then she generally would. And I would really feel guilty if she was revising and I wasn't."

Incredibly, the pair also gained identical results in their 11 GCSEs with the exception of one subject. Before beginning a summer holiday in their parents' birth place of Iran, both girls will continue to aim high by taking their Duke of Edinburgh Gold Award. The twins' father is a professor of electronic engineering at the University of Essex and their mother is an IT consultant.

The second set of twins are a year younger. Nicola and Suzannah Robertson from Fordham, near Colchester, each achieved four Grade As.

Nicola said: "I'm shocked. It's amazing. It's like you work for seven years for the Alevels and to get the results is amazing." Nicola is going to Downing College, Cambridge, to read natural sciences after spending a year out which will include a trip to Namibia in Africa with Raleigh International. Suzannah is going to Sheffield University to read geography.

Refugee Vera Broussava, who came to Britain two years ago with poor English, was today awarded three Grade A passes in maths, information technology and further maths. However her hopes of taking up a place at Imperial College in London to study maths could be dashed by the Home Office which is yet to decide if she can stay in the country, according to her school, Seven King High in Ilford.

The 11-year-old success story, Ilia Karmanov, from Ealing, was delighted to learn he had become one of the youngest ever to pass an A-level after completing a course in computing in just nine months. He beat most of the other exam entrants by at least seven years.

Ilia, who came from his native Latvia six years ago, achieved a B-grade in computing and now wants to go on to become a programmer. He joins the ranks of Britain's brainiest children, although the record for the youngest person to pass an A-level is still believed to be held by Ganesh Sittampalam, who got an A in maths aged nine years and four months, in 1988. Ilia, who studied at Ryde College in Ealing, said he was "very happy" to have passed the exam and was now going to focus on doing well in other subjects when he starts at The John Lyon School in Harrow next month.

Asked what his schoolfriends thought of him taking an A-level at his age, he replied: "The other boys think I'm mad doing all this studying when I could be playing games. But I'm doing what I enjoy. I have been taking computers apart with a hammer and screwdriver for years."

He said he played strategic and racing games, including Warcraft III and Need for Speed, but added: "I'm not that interested in games." Eventually, he said, he would like to study for a doctorate in computer science at university. But his next project would be to build his mother Natalia, a piano teacher, her own website, so she could advertise on the internet.

Prime Minister Tony Blair's eldest son Euan, who is on holiday with his parents in France, was among those getting their results today. But a Downing Street spokeswoman said: "We won't be making any announcement about his A-levels. That's a private matter for him."

Euan, 17, who was a pupil at The London Oratory School in Fulham, is believed to be hoping to go to Oxford University.

Dyslexic student Tom Freije, 18, overcame his condition to gain four Grade As in economics, English literature, history, and government and politics after studying at Brighton College's specialist unit. He has been offered a place at at Pembroke College in Oxford to study history and politics.

A 76-year-old pensioner was confident of gaining an incredible 29th A-level today. Terry Tyacke, from Trowbridge in Wiltshire, has completed a one year A-level course in social policy. Mr Tyacke, a retired shipwright and a grandfather, did his first A-level, in geography, in 1973.