LOOKING BACK ON MY SCHOOL DAYS
When I was eleven years old I was (0) delighted to pass the eleven plus exam so ran l could go to the local grammar school.
On my first day there I felt a mixture of (1) excitement and (2) confusion. There seemed to be so many other boys who were much bigger than us. They were so (3) self-confident and seemed to know everybody. The worst thing was the (4) dominating prefects ordering us around. Of course, such feelings did not last long. After a few weeks, I was (5) cheerful, had friends and was beginning to bе (6) enthusiastic about life at my new school. In those days, most schools had a uniform and I became quite (7) proud of wearing mine. Fairly soon I learnt that to make sure one got a job or went on to university after (8) leaving school, you had to pass exams. Then you would not be in danger of being (9) unemployed. To pass exams you had to know something and that meant studying. I was (10) inspired by biology and geography, completely (11) confused by chemistry, and generally (12) indifferent to other subjects. In the English (13) educational tradition, sport was considered an important character building aspect of school life. So I (14) easily managed to play lots of different sports all of which I enjoyed, except for cricket with which I was always terribly (15) boring.
