Published: The Observer, Sunday, May 6, 2012; http://www.guardian.co.uk/sports
Level of Difficulty: ***
BEFORE YOU READ
1.
How
important is fair play in sports or athletics and how can it be provided?
2.
How
reliable are the current methods of providing fairness?
3.
What
else could be done to ensure fair play?
QUESTIONS
1.
The
erroneous explanation provided to explain why men are physically more powerful
than women is the fact that ………………………………………………………………..(Use your own words and
be brief)
2.
What
seems to be the real reason for the above situation?
3.
Read
paragraph three carefully and state clearly what conclusion can be drawn from
it.
4.
The
writer says that “Female world and Olympic records set prior to random drug
testing have been much harder to break”.
How does the writer qualify this statement? Note to the student: this
question means you are required to find a sentence – not necessarily the very
next one – which provides the same information but expands on it. It should
logically follow the statement in the question.
5.
Read
the story of Dora Ratjen and state clearly whether her case was a deliberate
attempt to mislead. How do you know?
6.
Read
the story of AIS. What conclusion can be drawn from this information as regards
the issue at hand?
7.
Read
the story of Caster Semenya. In view of what you know about AIS, should she
have been allowed to compete? Should people with AIS be allowed to compete at
all? Discuss.
8.
If
genetic enhancement is acceptable, why not pharmacological? Would it not level
the playing field? Discuss.
9.
What
is the current official answer to the dilemma above?
10.
What
does the phrase “This cosy hypothesis” refer to?
11.
What
does “this” refer to in the question “Is this fair”?
12.
Now
explain where you stand in relation to the dilemma.
13.
Now
read the last paragraph of the text. What does “this” refer to in the sentence
“I once would have thought this a fantasy”?
WRITING: PROBLEM SOLUTION ESSAY
Write an essay in which you answer
the question posed by the writer of the text: What do we do to ensure fairness
in a competition? Alternatively, write an opinion essay in which you discuss
your own views concerning the dilemmas presented in the text.
KEY AND TEACHER’S NOTES
This is a text with a most definite wow factor as it is all about an
issue that the students have not read about in class. It, therefore, has
novelty value. The dilemmas raised in the text are also novel, which will make
students sit up and focus. The questions are of varying levels of difficulty
but the vast majority are analytical to some degree as are a lot of the
questions on this blog. The referrals are dynamite so look out. Due to the
nature of the topic, I have slipped in some moral dilemmas as well; a perfectly
legit practice. I have high hopes for this task.
1.
Men
hunt
2.
Males
fight other males in competition for mates.
3.
Evolution
has allowed a large scope for improvement to any female…
4.
Steroid
doping that was widespread in the 1980’s has had a more dramatic effect in
female sport than in male sport.
5.
No.
Given the nature of the times…
6.
This
100 fold increase suggests the possibility of some performance enhancement due
to this syndrome.
7.
Open
ended.
8.
Open
ended.
9.
Elite
athletes are all genetic anomalies; it is just a question of how extreme the anomaly.
10.
Performance
is multifactorial
11.
EPO
is top of the list of performance enhancing chemicals yet there is someone who
through an accident of birth is behaving exactly as if he were doping with EPO.
12.
Open
ended.
13.
There
being different classes dependent on different genetic sequences in key
molecules. Open ended.
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