Обратите внимание: в номере 36 буква-подсказка стоит в неправильном месте. Именно так и было на самой олимпиаде. Имейте в виду: составители олимпиад тоже люди, и им свойственно ошибаться :)
There may be some who are hazy about the precise meanings of “prep school” and “public school.” A prep school is an establishment designed, as the name implies, to prepare a child. In this instance the preparation is for public school. Public school, as the name decidedly does not imply, is wholly private. Public schools undertake to guide, mould and instruct pupils aged between thirteen and eighteen. Prep schools accept their (26) from somewhere in the region of eight, nine or ten years old, and prepare them for the Common (27) Examination, a test recognised by all the public schools. Different public schools are satisfied by different results. Thus Winchester, which has an interest in only the (28) boys, would expect marks way above seventy per cent, while Malvern might be content with (29) in the nether fifties or upper forties. Public schools can decide whom they take according to their need to have a profitable school roll, according to their own sense of (30) reputation, according to a candidate’s athletic, musical or artistic qualities, or according to his status as (31) of a Great, Rich and Desirable Parent.
At the time of my infancy, nearly all prep and public schools were single-sex (32) schools. Today, girls are involved to a much greater degree, sometimes only in the sixth form, sometimes all the way through. Parents are more reluctant to pack their children off early and may choose to have them (33) classes as day pupils. They expect more say in the running of a school and complain more vocally about living conditions, Spartan (34) and the core (35) But these changes aside, the system, so far as I have been able to ascertain, is much as it was.