Ask high school students in Taipei how the evening ends, and many will name a (11) school. After a full day of classes, they eat a quick meal and sit in another classroom, where a (12) goes over the same material once more. Parents pay a great deal for these extra hours, hoping their child will win a place at a top (13). Teachers are divided. Some say the drills raise scores; others (14) that a student who only memorizes never learns to think. Almost all agree, though, that the long evenings leave too little time to (15) any other interest.
Ten years ago the village school on this hillside had only nine (16) left, and the county planned to close it. A retired teacher refused to accept that decision. She wrote to every company in the area and asked each one to pay for a small (17) so that young families would not move away. Their gifts also bought books, a bus and a science room. Today forty children study here, and last June eight of them became the first to (18) from the school in five years. The old teacher still comes on Fridays to (19) the youngest class in reading, and she likes to (20) new parents that no child here is forgotten.