Wu Yishu, a senior high school student from Shanghai, has become an Internet sensation after winning a CCTV competition on ancient Chinese poetry on Tuesday night.

Wu, 16, is a student at the high school affiliated to Fudan University.

With her knowledge of about 2,000 ancient Chinese poems, she won the fourth episode of the 10-episode competition. Though defeated in the fifth session, the 1.8-meter tall contestant showed up at the final episode on Tuesday night with another three remarkable competitors from previous sessions to challenge the winner of the ninth session, and ended up as the overall champion.

Wu won the highest mark in the first round when replying to nine questions simultaneously with 105 other competitors. In the second round when asked to recite non-repetitive ancient verses. Wu was again triumphant.

In the final round against the winner of the previous session, she got the better of an editor of a poetry magazine to become the grand champion of the annual competition, the second of its kind to be held.

Li Guangding, a professor at Shanghai Normal University, said he could see Wu was truly a poetry lover. “She was shy and stayed mainly with her father between the competitions,” he said. “But when on the stage and speaking of poems, she was excited and active.”

Li said the competition “also reminded us that education on ancient poems should not be merely asking students to recite them. We have to make them understand and love them, so that they would like to explore the beauty of ancient literature by themselves.”