"I'm very surprised about all of this. But I'm just glad I didn't fail my exam."
The Columba College 15-year-old was top in New Zealand for the 2009 Cambridge international general certificate of secondary education in global perspectives.
Grace was one of more than 10,000 pupils who sat Cambridge examinations in more than 50 state and independent New Zealand schools last November.
She said global perspectives was the study of global issues - such as disease and health, climate change, eco-systems loss, and fuels and energy - from a variety of perspectives.
It also looked at how these issues interacted with each other and how they were linked.
The emphasis was on developing the ability to think critically about a range of global issues where there was always more than one point of view.
Grace said she was so surprised at her results because she was one of the first to sit the paper, and she did not expect to do so well.
"This was a pilot programme. We were the first year to sit this paper, and we were all very confused about the curriculum at the start."
However, close scrutiny of a wide variety of global issues in the media had paid dividends for her.
It had also begun what could be a life-long interest in global affairs, she said.
"Doing this project has given me an interest in the media and where these topics pop up. When I see an article about something like global warming, I read it because it's relevant and I still have an interest in it."
