3. Read the following passage carefully:
Olympic games were the most famous of the four great national festivals of the ancient Greeks, the other three
being the Isthmian Games, the Pythian Games, and the Nemean Games. The ancient Olympic Games were
celebrated in the summer every four years in the sanctuary of the god Zeus at Olympia. The history of the
games dates from 776 B C. Early in the year of the Games, envoys were sent throughout the Greek world to
invite the city-states to join in paying tribute to Zeus. The city-states then dispatched groups to vie with one
another in the splendor of their equipment and the proficiency of their athletic feats. The competitions were
open only to honourable men of Greek descent. The order of the events is not precisely known, but the first
day of the festival was devoted to sacrifices. The second day began, in all probability, with footraces, for which
the spectators gathered in the stadium, an oblong area enclosed by sloping banks of earth. On other days,
Wresthing, boxing and the pancratium, a combination of the two, were held. In the first of these sports, the
object was to throw the antagonist to the ground three times. Boxing became more and more brutal; at first
the fighters wound straps of soft leather over their fingers as a means if deadening the blows, but in later times
hard leather, sometimes weighted with metal, was used. In the pancratium, the most rigorous of the sports,
the contest continued until one of the participants acknowledged defeat. Horse racing, in which each entrant
owned his horse, was confined to the wealthy but was nevertheless a popular attraction. After the horse racing
came the pentathlon, a series of five events; wrestling, discus throwing, javelin hurling, long jumping and
sprinting. The exact sequence of the sports and the method used to determine the winner are not known. The
discuss was a plate of bronze, probably lens shaped. The javelin was hurled with the aid of a strap wound about
the shaft, producing a rotary motion for greater distance and accuracy. The jumping event was judged for
distance, not for height.
(a) On the basis of your reading of the above passage, make suitable notes giving an appropriate title.
(b) Make a summary using those notes.
Answers
Answer:
Olympic games were the most famous of the four great national festivals of the ancient Greeks, the other three
being the Isthmian Games, the Pythian Games, and the Nemean Games. The ancient Olympic Games were
celebrated in the summer every four years in the sanctuary of the god Zeus at Olympia. The history of the
games dates from 776 B C. Early in the year of the Games, envoys were sent throughout the Greek world to
invite the city-states to join in paying tribute to Zeus. The city-states then dispatched groups to vie with one
another in the splendor of their equipment and the proficiency of their athletic feats. The competitions were
open only to honourable men of Greek descent. The order of the events is not precisely known, but the first
day of the festival was devoted to sacrifices. The second day began, in all probability, with footraces, for which