Passage Champion of the Channel
Champion of the Channel
In 1926 an editor at the London Daily News predicted that Gertrude Ederle, an American swimmer with eighteen world records and three Olympic medals, would fail in her attempt to swim across the English Channel. He claimed that “even the most uncompromising champion of the rights and capacities of women must admit that in contests of physical skill, speed and endurance they must remain forever the weaker sex.” Yet, at only nineteen years old, Ederle not only became the first woman to accomplish this feat, she also broke the men’s record by two hours. Gertrude Ederle’s triumphant swim across the English Channel was a testimony to her determination, innovative spirit, and passion for swimming.
Crossing the English Channel is a daunting task for any swimmer. At its narrowest point, the channel measures twenty-one miles across. Its icy waters hover around sixty degrees Fahrenheit, and its unruly tides and currents toss swimmers about like bobbing corks. Stinging jellyfish, seaweed, and floating debris from shipwrecks and lost cargoes present added hazards.
For decades the channel’s perils have defeated countless swimmers. Ederle, too, failed in her first attempt to cross the channel in 1925. Just six miles short of finishing, she became ill, and her coach had to haul her out of the water. Undeterred, Ederle decided to try again. Ederle knew that if she did not complete the challenge this time, she might never get the opportunity to set this record, because a rival female swimmer was preparing to make her second attempt at the crossing as well.
To prepare for the marathon swim, Ederle found ways to improve her equipment. She and her sister Meg discovered that melted candle wax perfectly sealed goggle edges, effectively waterproofing Ederle’s goggles against hammering waves. The sisters also designed a two-piece silk swimsuit for Ederle. During her first channel-crossing attempt she had worn a standard one-piece swimsuit that, after the lengthy hours of swimming across the channel, had stretched out, filling with water and creating drag, making an already challenging task almost insurmountable. Unlike the cumbersome typical bathing suit, this silk invention weighed little and allowed for easy movement.
On August 6, 1926, Ederle waded into the channel near Cape Gris-Nez, France. At first she shivered in the bone-chilling water even though she had covered her body in eight layers of grease for insulation. Her limbs felt stiff. Her strokes were irregular. Driving forward, she fought to clear her mind and find what she called her “sphere,” a place where the sea became her only companion and the shrieks of gulls and the humming of boat engines faded away. Using a new overhand stroke called the American crawl, Ederle eventually settled into a steady pace, briskly breaking through waves.
Throughout Ederle’s swim, two tugboats accompanied her. One carried newspaper reporters who wired dispatches of her progress to shore. The other, displaying a sign that read “This way, ole kid!” with an arrow pointing forward, transported her coach, family, and friends. Her coach played songs, such as “Yes, We Have No Bananas,” on a phonograph so that Ederle could time her strokes to the rhythm. Using a net, her coach also passed her baby bottles of broth for nourishment.
For hours Ederle swam, dodging debris with an amused smile. However, as she neared the English shore, a sudden fierce storm erupted. The tides and waves forced Ederle backward, and she fought the stubborn swells for several hours. The salty water caused her tongue to swell and inflamed her ears. Yet Ederle felt indescribably happy as she churned through the sea. Finally, as she neared the English shore, the storm abated, and the tide turned. No longer fighting against her, the sea pushed her toward the shore and victory.
After fourteen hours and thirty-one minutes, Ederle, on wobbly legs, stepped onto the English shore. The waiting crowd roared, honked their automobile horns, blasted their tugboat whistles, and set off flares that flashed in the sky. Ederle had swum into history.
When Ederle returned to New York, she received a parade, where thousands of people shouted “Trudy!” Not only were everyday American citizens proud of Ederle, but she also inspired them to be more active. Over the next few years, more than 60,000 people credited her with motivating them to earn their American Red Cross swimming certificates. Gertrude Ederle’s accomplishment proved to the world that with determination and passion, it was possible for a person to achieve his or her goals.
SOLO SWIMS ACROSS THE ENGLISH CHANNEL
|
Earliest Speed Records |
||
| Year | Swimmer | Time |
| 1875 | Matthew Webb (M) | 21 hours, 45 minutes |
| 1923 | Enrico Tiraboschi (M) | 16 hours, 33 minutes |
| 1926 | Gertrude Ederle (F) | 14 hours, 31 minutes |
| 1926 | Arnst Vierkotter (M) | 12 hours, 38 minutes |
| Current Speed Records | ||
| Year | Swimmer | Time |
| 2012 | Trent Grimsey (M) | 6 hours, 55 minutes |
| 2006 | Yvetta Hlavacova (F) | 7 hours, 25 minutes |
Question
Read this sentence from paragraph 3.
Ederle knew that if she did not complete the challenge this time, she might never get the opportunity to set this record, because a rival female swimmer was preparing to make her second attempt at the crossing as well.
How does this sentence fit into the overall structure of the passage?
- AIt emphasizes that Ederle’s attempt to swim across the channel led other female swimmers to attempt the challenge.
- BIt presents the reason why Ederle prepared to cross the channel again immediately after her initial failure.
- CIt shows Ederle’s realization that she had to rethink her methods if she wanted to be the first woman to cross the channel.
- DIt indicates that Ederle had learned from her mistakes and was working to fix them before her next attempt.
Show the answer
Correct answer: B
The answer is (B)
The question asks how the sentence from paragraph 3 fits into the overall structure of the passage.
Option B is correct because it explains that Ederle’s awareness of another female swimmer preparing to make an attempt to swim the channel directly influenced Ederle’s decision to make her second attempt as quickly as possible. Ederle wanted to be the first woman to successfully swim across the channel.
Option A is incorrect because the passage does not provide information about other female swimmers who were inspired by Ederle to swim across the channel.
Option C is incorrect because, although Ederle did rethink her methods between her first and second attempts, the sentence does not show any sort of realization nor does it address her reasoning for rethinking her methods.
Option D is incorrect because the sentence is not related to Ederle’s process for learning from her mistakes.
Question analysis
This reading question quotes a sentence about a rival swimmer from a passage on Gertrude Ederle's English Channel swim and asks how it fits the passage's overall structure. Students must see how the sentence connects her failed first attempt to what came next, and the choices differ in small but important ways.
- Grade level
- Grade 8 reading and task
- Compared with grade 7
- Above grade 7 Explaining how one sentence fits a passage's structure is a grade 7 standard, but the choices differ by shades of meaning and the sentence must be read against the paragraphs on either side, which goes beyond typical grade 7 work.
- Estimated difficulty
- Hard: combines ideas, needs a plan, and has more than one tempting wrong answer.
- Thinking it demands
- Depth of knowledge 3, strategic thinking · mainly analyze
- What makes it hard
- A very close wrong answer major
- How, not what moderate
- Reading between the lines moderate
- Evidence
- Answered from several paragraphs or stanzas
- Reading level
- Passage: about grade 9, 790 words; question and choices: about grade 10, 133 words.
- Corrected from the DOE handbook
- The handbook’s answer key was corrected, because its own explanation supports a different choice.
- Students, last 30 days
- Not enough answers yet to show (it takes 10).
Why it is hard, traps and wrong answers (shows the answer)
Why it is hard
The sentence sits at a hinge, right before a paragraph about new goggles and a new swimsuit, so it is easy to read that paragraph's content back into it. What the sentence itself offers is a motive, the rival's plans, for trying again without delay. Students who paraphrase the sentence before reading the choices avoid the trap; those who match choices to the surrounding story fall into it.
A very close wrong answer major Choosing the answer
The right choice and the rethinking-methods one both tie the sentence to her next attempt and to being first across; only the sentence's silence about methods separates them, and even the DOE handbook keyed the wrong one. (Embretson & Wetzel, 1987; Gorin & Embretson, 2006; Ascalon et al., 2007)
How, not what moderate Working it out
The question asks what the sentence does in the passage, bridging the failed 1925 attempt and the new equipment of paragraph 4, rather than what it says. (Anderson & Krathwohl, 2001)
Reading between the lines moderate Working it out
The “because” clause gives a motive for urgency, a rival preparing her second attempt, which the student must connect to Ederle's decision to try again. (Graesser, Singer & Trabasso, 1994; Kintsch, 1998)
Strategy: Reread the sentence along with the two sentences before it, put what this sentence itself says into your own words, and only then compare the choices with it.
Traps
- Half right: One half of a two-part choice is right and the other is not.
- Wrong part of the text: A choice is true of another paragraph, stanza or speaker than the one asked about.
- Reversed relationship: Cause and effect, or the order of events, turned around.
The wrong answers, classified
A Reversed relationship (King et al., 2004)
Reads the rival's attempt as a result of Ederle's, reversing the sentence, in which the rival's plans come first and spur Ederle on.
C Half right (King et al., 2004; Thissen, Steinberg & Fitzpatrick, 1989)
Gets the aim right, being the first woman to cross, but adds a realization about rethinking her methods that the sentence never mentions and paragraph 4 only implies.
D Wrong part of the text (Kirsch & Mosenthal, 1990)
Brings in the fixes of paragraph 4, the waxed goggles and the silk suit, though this sentence is about a rival's threat and says nothing about past mistakes.
What was corrected from the DOE handbook, and why
- Answer key: The handbook keys this question G (C on this site). But its explanation of the correct answer, that knowing a rival was preparing her own attempt made Ederle decide to make her second attempt as quickly as possible, describes F (B here), and its reason for rejecting F, that the sentence shows no realization about rethinking her methods, describes G (C here). The quoted sentence gives a reason for urgency and says nothing about her methods, which the passage turns to in paragraph 4. The key is now B, and the explanation’s option letters were swapped to match its reasoning.
Working it out, step by step
Figure out what the question asks
This asks what job the sentence does in the passage. It’s not just what the sentence says, but why it is there. So look at what comes right before it and right after it.
Read the sentence in its place
Paragraph 3 says Ederle failed in 1925. Then: “Undeterred, Ederle decided to try again.” Undeterred means not discouraged. Next comes the sentence: “Ederle knew that if she did not complete the challenge this time, she might never get the opportunity to set this record, because a rival female swimmer was preparing to make her second attempt at the crossing as well.”
Put it in your own words
A rival is someone trying to reach the same goal. Another woman was getting ready to try again too. If she made it first, Ederle could never be the first woman across. So Ederle had to try again, and soon. The sentence gives the reason she hurried to try again.
Notice what the sentence leaves out
The sentence says nothing about her goggles, her swimsuit, or her methods. It doesn’t mention any mistakes she made. Those ideas come later, in paragraph 4. So any choice about fixing her methods goes beyond this sentence.
Check each choice
- B: it gives the reason she got ready to cross again so soon. A rival might beat her.
- A has it backward. Here the rival’s plan pushes Ederle, not the other way around. Nothing says Ederle led other women to try.
- C is about rethinking her methods. The sentence never mentions methods.
- D is about learning from mistakes. The sentence never mentions mistakes either.
Watch out: C is the trickiest. It gets her goal right, to be the first woman across. But “rethink her methods” is not in this sentence.
Pick the answer
The sentence explains why Ederle rushed to try again after she failed. So the answer is B.
Why this answer and not the closest wrong one
C is the closest wrong answer. Ederle did improve her gear later, and she did want to be first. But this sentence never says she needed new methods. It gives only her reason to hurry: a rival was about to try again. That is exactly what B says.
More questions like this
The original DOE question
The passage “Champion of the Channel” as printed (pages 56–57)
