Reading Comprehension #7 - Intermediate

Read the article and answer the questions. Dayton High School is celebrating its centenary this year. In this article, former students share their memories of their school years.

‘I just remember being completely terrified on my first day at Dayton High’ recalls former Head Girl, Julia Franks. ‘Everyone was so grown up and all the classrooms seemed so big but the teachers were all very kind and patient so we soon settled down and I look back over my years there with great affection.’ Leonie Brand, however, doesn’t share these warm memories. ‘From the moment I stepped through the door into my new classroom, I felt uncomfortable. It was a steep learning curve for me because my parents had educated me at home until I was 11. I don’t think I ever really fitted in so my parents decided to take me away after a term when they realised things weren’t improving.’ For academic children like Cora Dyson, the school was perfect. ‘The more homework, the better! That’s what I thought in those days. I was like a sponge and wanted to learn everything. No doubt everyone thought I was the teacher’s pet and maybe I was but I didn’t care.’ ‘I don’t really remember that much about school except that we had to learn loads of poems by heart. Our English teacher was a great fan of 19th century literature and poetry so she would make us learn endless poems and then recite them in front of the class. I hated it because I could never remember all the words and she would invariably get annoyed with me,’ said Joe Sexton. Clare Howard used to envy the girls who made everything look so easy. ‘I remember one girl in particular, Stella, who passed all her exams with flying colours. How did she do it I would ask myself. She had everything. She was pretty, popular, funny and intelligent while I had to study so hard to do well.’ ‘It’s funny but when I was at school I was really bad at French grammar though I found it quite easy to pick up the slang when we went on a school trip to Paris,’ remembers Lucy Freeman. ‘I think it had something to do with the fact that our French teacher wasn’t very interesting so we didn’t pay attention in class.'

 

Answer the following questions.

0   Who didn’t find exams easy?	Clare Howard
a) Who was probably the favourite of her teachers?	_____
b) Who has a bad memory?	_____
c) Who found it hard to settle down?	_____
d) Who found it easier to learn outside the classroom?	_____
e) Who remembers her teachers as good people?	_____

 

 

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