Playing on Wheels
A feature about Yarden, a girl injured in an accident who returned to sport through wheelchair basketball.
Tap any word to hear it · dotted words have a definition in the glossary
🎧 Listen
1When Yarden Cohen was eleven, a car accident left her unable to walk. For months she refused to leave the house. "I was sure that my life as an was over," she remembers. Before the accident, she had played basketball four times a week.
2Everything changed when a took her to watch a wheelchair basketball practice at a sports center near her home. "The players were into each other, laughing and shouting," Yarden says. "Nobody looked sorry for themselves. I wanted to be on that ."
3Wheelchair basketball is played on a regular , with the basket at the usual height of 3.05 meters. Players must bounce the ball while they push their chairs, and they may push the wheels only twice before they bounce, pass or shoot the ball. The chairs are light and specially built, with wheels that inwards so that players can turn quickly.
4Today Yarden is sixteen and trains five times a week with her club. Last year she was chosen for the national youth team, and on Fridays she coaches young children who have just started to play. Her arms are so strong that her older brother, a soldier, refuses to arm-wrestle her.
5Yarden also visits schools to talk about sport and . "People see the chair first," she says. "I want them to see the player."
📘 Glossary
- athlete - a person who is good at sports and takes part in them
- physiotherapist - a person who helps injured people move and exercise their bodies
- crashing - hitting something hard
- court - the area where a game like basketball is played
- lean - to slope to one side
- disability - a condition that makes some activities more difficult
Questions
Finding details
1. What happened to Yarden when she was eleven?Making inferences
2. "For months she refused to leave the house." This shows that Yarden…Finding details
3. Who took Yarden to watch a wheelchair basketball practice?Making inferences
4. What impressed Yarden most about the players?Finding details
5. Complete: In wheelchair basketball, the basket is ______ meters high, the same as in regular basketball.Finding details
6. How many times may a player push the wheels before bouncing, passing or shooting the ball?Finding details
7. Why do the wheels of the chairs lean inwards?Purpose and structure
8. Why does the writer mention that Yarden's brother refuses to arm-wrestle her?Making inferences
9. Explain what Yarden means when she says, "People see the chair first. I want them to see the player."Word meaning
10. In paragraph 1, the word "refused" is closest in meaning to…
Answer every question to get a score (0/10)