Matching Sentence Endings Question in IELTS Reading

Doping in Sports

Q- Read the passage and answer the questions 1-5. 

A new scientific study has found that doping is far more common in professional sport than the rates suggested by blood and urine tests of the athletes. The study found that at least 30 percent of athletes in the 2011 International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) World Championships and 45 percent of athletes at the Pan-Arab Garnes in 2017 camed to have taken doping drugs or used other doping methods. Only a fraction of these cases were detected by biological tests: At the World Championships, 0.5 percent of biological tests showed positive for doping agents, this figure rose to 35 percent for the Pan Arab games

Harrison G. Pope, Jr. MD, MPH, director, Biological Psychiatry Laboratory at McLean Hospital in Belmont, Massachusetts, and Professor Rolf Urich from the University of Tübingen in Tubingen Germany, together with an international group of seven other authors, conducted the study on behalf of the World Arni Doping Agency (WADA) in 2011. The results of the study "Doping in Two Elite Athletics Competitions Assessed by Randomised Response Surveys have now been published in the journal Sports Medicine. The publication also includes detailed statistical analyses in the appendix which underline the significance of the findings. 

The scientists used a randomised response method to question a total of 7,167 participants at the World Championships in Daegu (South Korea) and the Pan-Arab Games in Doha (Qatar), asking whether they had taken doping drugs or used other banned doping methods before the competitions. This method ensured the anonymity of the respondents and allowed them to answer honestly without fearing negative consequences. 

"The randomised response method is used for sensitive topics. In a direct face to face interview, respondents would be strongly motivated to provide socially desirable responses, even if these responses were not true. Anonymity gives protection, allowing the respondents to answer honestly", explains Ulrich, head of the Cognition and Perception Research Group at the Department of Psychology at the University of Tübingen. 

In the study, six interviewers who collectively spoke ten languages: attended the competitions and personally asked 2,320 athletes to participate. More than 30 percent agreed The athletes were asked on a mobile device to answer one of two questions- an unobtrusive question about a birthdate or a sensitive question about whether they had engaged in banned doping in the past 12 months. The two questions were selected at random. Therefore, if an athlete answered "yes", the investigators could not tell whether the athlete was answering yes to the unobtrusive question or "yes" to the sensitive question-thus guaranteeing the athlete's anonymity. 

However, even though the investigators could not ascertain which of the two questions had been answered by any individual athlete, they could use statistical methods to closely estimate the percentage of athletes in the overall study group who had answered yes to the doping question. The investigators also took into account different scenarios that might have caused incorrect responses. For example, the fastest responses were not included because the respondents might not have read the text thoroughly. 

"Overall, this study suggests that biological tests of blood and urine greatly underestimate the true prevalence of doping", emphasises Pope, who is also a professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School. "As we note in the paper, this is probably due to the fact that athletes have found various ways to best the tests". 

Tests immediately before and during a competition find evidence of coping on average of only 3-3 percent However, doping agents are often no longer biologically detectable at this time if they have been taken long before. Somewhat better results are achieved with the "biological passport," which tracks the athlete's medical data and offers a higher detection rate of about 14 percent. The passport employees long-term documentation which can reveal deviations that could be caused by the abuse of doping agents. Doping agents are defined as all items listed by the WADA on the "List of Prohibited Substances and Methods". 

Complete each sentence with the correct ending A-G

A.  Participated in the survey carried out by a group of scientists.

B.  Participate, more than 90% agreed. 

C.  Have been found guilty of taking doping drugs

D.  The fastest responses were not included 

E.  And offers a higher detection rate of about 14 percent

F.  The Randomised Response Method"

G.  Are detected by biological tests

1.  In professional sport, many athletes

• A
• B
• C
• D
• E
• F
• G

2.  Only a fraction of doping cases in professional report

• A
• B
• C
• D
• E
• F
• G

3.  When six interviewers personally asked 2,320 athletes 

• A
• B
• C
• D
• E
• F
• G

4.  As the respondents might not have read the text thoroughly, 

• A
• B
• C
• D
• E
• F
• G

5.  "Biological passport", tracks the athlete's medical data

• A
• B
• C
• D
• E
• F
• G

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