My knees started shaking. It felt as though my soul ________ my body. Anxiously, I looked through the list posted on the wall of the locker room. I saw all my friends’ names except mine. I ________. I just couldn’t accept that I was not on the team.

I stormed out of the room as fast as I could. My mind was ________ for the rest of the school day. After school, as I walked to the parking lot to get ________, I saw all my friends gathered there, celebrating and joking around. I walked around the side of the school to ________ them. I saw my father’s familiar red Mazda pull up near the school lot and got in. He noticed my ________ face and asked me what was wrong.

“Nothing. It’s just that all my friends made the school team except me.”

“Well, are you just going to sit there?” he asked.

What my dad said ________ to me. Nobody was going to give me a（n）________ on that team. I would have to earn it. Having made this mental ________, I decided to work toward my goal of making the team. ________, there was a gym near my school, so as soon as the bell rang for school to end, I biked to the gym and trained for two hours. I ran and shot until I ________ on the hardwood floor every single day.

There were moments when I didn’t think I could keep on going, but I made it ________ them. After all, hard work ________ talent when talent doesn’t work hard.

After a year of training, I ________ for my seventh-grade team. Seeing my name printed in large letters felt as though all my dreams had come true. The greater the effort, the sweeter the ________, and by making the team, I had officially made a turnaround.