STUDYING classical Greek literature would present a challenge to most scholars at any age but one student chose to tackle the works of Homer at 15 years old.

Of course it helped that Effie Costalas already had a grade A GCSE in modern Greek under her belt after taking the exam at the tender age of 12.

Effie, from Penylan, Cardiff, has the added benefit of spending summers with her Greek family on Chios, one of the Greek islands that is in Homer's work.

But the Cathedral School pupil still had to tackle the ancient language and heavyweight literature to earn an A* grade GCSE in the subject a year before she took the rest of her exams.

Today Effie, now 16, was celebrating gaining another set of A* grades in 10 more GCSE subjects including one in Latin.

"I was very nervous when they entered me for my modern Greek at 12," the teenager said.

"I started doing classical Greek as an after-school activity and I enjoyed it so much that a group of us decided to take it as a GCSE.

"I knew the alphabet but the literature was a lot harder because we had to read Homer and all the pronunciations are different.

"I love my Latin and my Greek but I'm not sure which one I would want to continue with."

Although an obvious candidate to study classics at university Effie does not want to drop her sciences.

Instead she hopes to put her knowledge of ancient languages to use as a medical lawyer.