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Read the following passage and answer the questions that follow.

      

Read the following passage and answer the questions that follow.

One of the oldest forms of recreation known to human kind, sports are the one arena in which many of the society’s
traditional strictures about masculinity are often loosened ,allowing boys to experience parts of themselves they reared experience elsewhere. At their best, sports provide boys with an opportunity for play in a free atmosphere so that they can be themselves and express a full range of emotions-from the exhilaration of a last minute goal to the acute disappointment of being defeated by the opposing team, from the joy of being the one to pull of unexpected play to the embarrassment of fumbling the ball in the last quarter of the game
Sports provide boys with the theater for the unfettered expressions of their feelings, a place where it is OK to be spirited, a motive and passionate. As twelve- year- old Max told me,”During school we have to be quiet, and raise our hands to talk. It is boring and sometimes I feel like there is nobody to talk to. I love doing sports after school because we can all be
together. We to run fast, shout out things, scream, whatever. It lets me be me.”
For many boys, sports can be a form of intimacy and a way to be honest. By temporarily freeing boys from the Boy Code — especially from the rules that say boys shouldn’t express feelings, show, and affection or expose their yarning for connection -sports can become one of the most important activities through which our sons, as their genuine selves, can relate closely with girls and other boys.
But just as much as they can offer a break from the Boy Code, a chance for openness, expressions and intimacy, sports can also push back loneliness, shame and vicious competition. “It’s rough out there” one high school football player recently told me. “Some guys play hard just the way they should. But other guys just seem like they are out to get you-you know, they try to demolish you”. Thus sports can also be a place where boys show unbridled aggression, let out inappropriate feelings of anger and frustrations, and actually hurt other boys.
And then sports can thrust boys into a cult of competition, the goal of winning at any cost, a quest for narcissistic glory at the expense of others. They cause some boys- especially those who are not interested in sports or who are not skilled at playing them —to feel left out unworthy, a shamed.
I firmly believe that the positive benefits to boys dim when sports cease to be play. D.W. Winnicott, to distinguished English pyschoanalist observed that for children, play is at the heart of health integrated development. His words were especially pertinent to boys whole inner selves are too often suppressed. “Playing shows that the child is capable of developing a personal way of life and eventually becoming a whole being... welcomed by the world at large.”
Sheer competition among ooysreareiyouna character and does little to bring boys closer to one another.
But sports, when they are played, can be a tremendously good thing for boys. The late commissioner of baseball and Renaissance scholar Giamatti A.BatletGiamati spoke of sports as, “that aspiration out of the self-for a moment in touch-with a joy free of all constraints. It is a sensation not of winning, but of fully playing “. When sports are kept in proper perspective — when we see sports primarily as a chance for boys come together for joyful, spirited high energy play-they can help boys discover new competencies, buttress their feelings of self-worth and reunite them with their authentic voices, enabling them to express the deepest stirrings of emotions in their hearts, widening their cycles of connection.

QUESTIONS.

1. In your own words, write the point that the author makes in the first sentence of this passage.


2. What is Max’s attitude towards school?


Re write the following sentences following the instructions given after each. Do not change the
meaning.

(a) Some guys play hard just the way they should,” said the student. (Rewrite in reported speech)


(b) During school we have to be quiet .(Add a question tag)


4. When do sports cease to be play according to the author?

5. What do you think the author means by Boy Code?


6. In not more than sixty words, summarize the disadvantages of sports as portrayed in the
passage

Rough Copy
.........................................................
.........................................................
.........................................................

Fair Copy

............................................................
............................................................
................................................................

7.Give the meaning of the following words as used in the passage

(a) Unfettered

(b) Pertinent

(c) Buttress

  

Answers


Martin
1. Sport is a way of expression through which boys can relax and experience their inner selves’.The joy of being creative and sadness of being a loser.

2. Max hates and despises school. He has an attitude of hate or condescending attitude. He says in school we are not free to express oneself.

3. (i) The student said some guys play hard just the way they should .
(ii) Don’t we.

4. When they become a source of loneliness, shame and vicious competition. When sports are used to discriminate against others and to hurt who cannot play or those who lose.

5. Boy – Code means the normal regulations given to boys which they must observe.

6. - Can push boys into loneliness, shame and vicious competition.
- Can be an avenue unbridled aggression, expression of in appropriate feelings of anger.
- Makes others to feel looked down if they cannot participate in any sport.

7. (a) Unfettered – free to do what we want
(b) Pertinent – crucial
(c) Buttress – support
marto answered the question on August 15, 2019 at 08:48


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