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.