PART-A Reading 20 marks
1. Read the passage given below.
a Nearly, all sports practised nowdays are competitive. you play to win and the game has
little meaning unless you do your utmost to win. On the village green, where you pick
up sides and no feeling of local patriotism is involved, it is possible to play simply for
the fun and exercise; but as soon as the question of prestige arises, as soon as you feel
that you and some larger unit will be disgraced if you lose, the most savage combative
instincts are aroused. Anyone who has played in a school football match knows this. At
the international level, sport is frankly mimic warfare. But the significant thing is not
hte discursive behaviour of the players but the attitude of the spectators and of the
nations who work themselves into furies over the absurd contests, and seriously
believe at any rate for short periods that running, jumping and kicking a ball are tests
of national virtue.
b In English, the obsession with sport is bad enough, but even fiercer passions are
aroused in young countries where game-playing and nationalism are both recent
developments. In countries like India or Burma, it is necessary at football matches to
have strong cordons of police to keep the crowd from invading the field. In Burma, I
have seen the supporters of one side break through the police and disable the
goalkeeper of the opposing side at a critical moment moment. The first big football
match that was played in Spain about fifteen years ago, led to an uncontrollable riot.
c. As soon as strong feeling of rivalry are aroused, the notion of played the game
according to rules always vanishes. People want to see one side on top and the other
humiliated and they forget that victory gained through cheating or through the
intervention of the crowd is meaningless. Even when spectators don't intervene
physically, they try to influence the game by cheering their own side and 'rattling
opposing players with boos and insults. Serious sport has nothing to do with fair play.
It is bound up with hatred, jealousy, boastfulness, disregard of all rules and sadistic
pleasure in witnessing violence: in other words, it is war without the shooting.
On the basis of your reading of the passage, answer any ten of the following questions.
i. What does the passage discuss about?
a Sports and media
c. Sports and its competitiveness
b. Sports and sportsmen
d. Sports and partriotism
ji These days playing a game has meaning
a little
b. little
d. few
the following factors make any comnetition meaningless?
a
C.
no​