READING – PART I.

Write the number of the most suitable sentence (a-f) in the text below. There is one extra sentence which you don’t need.

Until a certain point in my life I had not written much of value – a few poems and short stories, the beginning of a coming-of-age novel. I knew that my writing was anything but refined. Like a beginning artist who loves to draw, _________________, and so I wrote often to better control my writing skills, to master them. I sent some material to various magazines and reviews but found no one willing to publish me.

__________________ when I learned something I’d written would finally see print. Ironically it wasn’t one of my poems or short stories -- it was my letter to the Times. I suppose the editor decided to publish it because he was first attracted by the official nature of my stationery and then by the incongruity of a ghetto firefighter’s using words like messianism, for in the lines below my letter it was announced that I was a New York City firefighter. ___________________ that the editor silently agreed with my thesis.

I remember receiving through the fire department’s address about 20 sympathetic and congratulatory letters from professors around the country. These letters made me feel like I was not only a published writer but an opinion maker. __________________ whose views mattered.

I also received a letter from True magazine and one from The New Yorker, asking for an interview. _______________________ for when an article titled “Fireman Smith” appeared in that magazine, I received a telephone call from the editor of a large publishing firm who asked if I might be interested in writing a book about my life.

a. It was as if I was suddenly thrust into being someone

b. It was a special and unexpected delight, then,

c. I decided to sketch and draw everything; objects, places and people equally

d. I understood that the more one draws, or writes, or does anything, the better the end result will be

e. It was the latter that proved momentous,

f. I’d like to think, though,