An English Lesson: Multiple Choice Grammar Test

I sat in on an English lesson at the Gamal Abdel Nasser Secondary School. The Scottish instructor - one of three Britons (1)_________ in the Yemeni school system – was drilling the class in the difference between the 'present simple' and the 'present continuous' .There were twenty very thin, very eager boys aged between about fourteen and twenty-two. They were part of that tiny educated leaven in a country which has an illiteracy rate of (2)_________ , and they had tense, ambitious faces. They (3)_________ to compete continually against each other, so that the lesson turned into a kind of noisy greyhound race. The moment that the instructor was half-way through a question, his voice was (4)_________ by shouts of 'Teacher! Teacher! Teacher!' and I lost sight of him behind the thicket of (5)_________ hands. If a student began to stumble over an answer, (6)_________ fought to grab the question for themselves, bellowing for (7)_________ attention. I once (8)_________ for a term at a comprehensive school in England: had the children in my class ever shown a small fraction of the enthusiasm (9)_________ by these Yemeni students, I might have stayed in the job a great deal longer. They were ravenous for the good marks and certificates which (10)_________ them out of their villages and tenements, and they behaved as if every minute (11)_________ in the classroom could make or break them.

Arabia Through the Looking Glass by Jonathan Raban (BrE)