LNAT Practice Passage 2: Sporting Categories
Read the passage below and answer the four LNAT-style multiple-choice questions. Full answers and explanations follow.
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Sporting Categories
At an Olympic boxing weigh-in, a few hundred grams can decide who is eligible to face whom. Paris 2024 used seven men's weight classes and six women's; Los Angeles 2028 is due to use seven for each. The numbers change, but the reason for separating boxers by size is familiar: otherwise body mass may overwhelm some of what the contest is intended to test.
When women first appeared at the modern Olympics in Paris in 1900, only 22 of the 997 athletes were female, competing in five sports. Women's events expanded afterwards, and boxing did not admit women to the Olympic programme until London 2012. Sex, like weight, became one of the lines around which competition was organised.
FIDE's Women's World Championship sits alongside competitions described as "open", in which women may also play. At the World Amateur Championships, a women's section can be merged into the open event if too few women enter. FIDE has promoted women's competitions partly to increase chess participation and visibility among girls and women, rather than because one player can physically overpower another across the board.
In the 1950s, organisers of early para-sport were asking whether athletes with different degrees of impairment should be divided into classes. Medical diagnosis initially did much of the work. From the 1980s, many sports moved towards functional systems asking how much an impairment affects performance in that sport; a below-elbow amputation can matter more in swimming than in running.
A swimmer with a physical impairment can be placed in one of ten numbered Para swimming classes. Different impairments may lead to the same class if their effect on swimming is judged similar, and assessment can include physical tests and observation in the water. The aim is to minimise the effect of impairment while leaving ordinary sporting differences to competition.
Even within one class, swimmers can differ in height, limb proportions, cardiovascular capacity, technique, training, coaching and psychology. Classification does not attempt to cancel all of those. It addresses selected impairments closely enough, in principle, that other sporting qualities have more room to determine the result.
The classification card itself may not be permanent. Paralympic procedures allow confirmed classifications as well as statuses requiring later review, and panels can reassess athletes. The rules move too: the IPC's 2025 Classification Code followed a multi-year review of the previous system.
In July 2025, World Athletics announced new eligibility rules for its female category and required athletes wishing to compete in that category at the World Championships to undergo a once-in-a-lifetime SRY gene test. Supporters argue that a protected female category is needed because puberty-related physiological differences can affect performance. Critics argue that such rules can exclude transgender or other athletes unfairly and reduce complicated biology to an eligibility boundary.
A scale can record weight exactly, and a laboratory can report a test result. Neither measurement decides which differences sport should regulate. Basketball does not divide players by height, although height can help; boxing divides them by weight. The characteristic chosen, the cut-off and the amount of advantage considered acceptable all come from rules.
Powered prostheses, gene editing or implanted devices may eventually force another choice. A federation might create a new category for a technology that confers a substantial advantage, or regulate the technology while keeping existing divisions.
A boxer just below a weight limit may have longer arms, faster reactions or better endurance than an opponent just above it, yet the scale can place them on opposite sides of a category. Similar imperfections run through other systems. Women's categories do not make all women physiologically alike, and Para classes concern the effect of eligible impairments rather than every characteristic affecting performance. Categories can narrow a particular inequality without removing the many advantages on which sport depends. Governing bodies keep deciding which differences belong inside a contest and which justify separation, and those decisions can later be challenged or rewritten. At Los Angeles 2028, boxers are nevertheless due to arrive at the weigh-in and be sorted into seven weight classes for each sex.
Questions
Question 1
All these examples illustrate sporting categories already used to separate competitors except:
- Aseparate classes for competitors using implanted performance-enhancing devices
- Bweight classes in boxing
- Cseparate women's competitions in chess under FIDE rules alongside competitions described as open
- Dsport classes in Para swimming
Question 2
What is the main cause of recurring disputes over sporting categories, according to the passage?
- AScientific measurements of characteristics such as weight and impairment are usually too imprecise to classify athletes reliably.
- BGoverning bodies must decide which differences between athletes should affect eligibility and where the boundaries should fall, while leaving many other advantages untouched.
- CMost sporting categories were created before scientific evidence about athletic performance became available.
- DAthletes can sometimes be reassessed after they have already been allocated to a category, creating uncertainty about future classification under the existing rules.
Question 3
According to the passage, why can Para sport classification not make competition completely level?
- AThe same impairment may affect performance differently in different sports.
- BClassification does not equalise every physical or psychological characteristic that may influence performance.
- CSome athletes may be given a classification status requiring them to be reassessed later, demonstrating that either the past classification or the current classification failed to level competition.
- DAthletes with different medical impairments may sometimes compete in the same sport class.
Question 4
Which of the following, according to the passage, is a fact?
- ALos Angeles 2028 will use seven boxing weight classes for both men and women.
- BA below-elbow amputation affects swimming more than running.
- CSporting federations will create new categories for athletes using gene editing or implanted devices.
- DOnly 22 of the 997 athletes at the Paris Olympics of 1900 were women.
Answers & explanations
Question 1: show answer and explanation
Correct answer: A.
separate classes for competitors using implanted performance-enhancing devices
The passage considers new classifications for athletes using technologies such as implanted devices only as a future possibility. It says a federation might create a new category if such technology produced a substantial advantage. No such classification is presented as an existing example. Trap: A resembles the other examples because the passage discusses how such a category could operate. The distinction is its status: it is hypothetical rather than an existing sporting classification.
- A The passage considers new classifications for athletes using technologies such as implanted devices only as a future possibility. It says a federation might create a new category if such technology produced a substantial advantage. No such classification is presented as an existing example.
- B Boxing weight classes are an established form of sporting classification. The opening paragraph gives the actual numbers of men's and women's weight categories used at Paris 2024.
- C FIDE currently operates women's competitions alongside open chess competitions, so this is an existing category even though its rationale differs from that of boxing weight divisions.
- D Para swimming currently allocates competitors with physical impairments among ten numbered sport classes according to the effect of impairment on swimming.
Question 2: show answer and explanation
Correct answer: B.
Governing bodies must decide which differences between athletes should affect eligibility and where the boundaries should fall, while leaving many other advantages untouched.
Across boxing, sex categories and Para sport, governing bodies decide which differences should be controlled and where eligibility boundaries should be placed. Other performance advantages, such as height, reach, endurance or technique, remain within the competition. Because neither the relevant characteristic nor its boundary is simply dictated by measurement, the rules remain open to disagreement and revision.
- A The passage explicitly allows that measurements themselves can be precise: a scale can record weight exactly and a laboratory can produce a test result. The dispute arises over what sporting significance should be attached to those measurements, not principally from an inability to measure them.
- B Across boxing, sex categories and Para sport, governing bodies decide which differences should be controlled and where eligibility boundaries should be placed. Other performance advantages, such as height, reach, endurance or technique, remain within the competition. Because neither the relevant characteristic nor its boundary is simply dictated by measurement, the rules remain open to disagreement and revision.
- C The history of Para classification shows that some early systems were developed with less scientific evidence and have since been revised. The passage does not say this is true of most sporting categories, nor does it identify historical lack of evidence as the main source of current disputes.
- D Reassessment shows that classification can change as an athlete's status or the evidence is reviewed. It is a consequence of how a classification system operates, rather than the underlying reason disputes about sporting categories recur.
Question 3: show answer and explanation
Correct answer: B.
Classification does not equalise every physical or psychological characteristic that may influence performance.
Para classification is designed to minimise the competitive effect of selected eligible impairments. It does not attempt to equalise height, cardiovascular capacity, limb proportions, technique, training, psychology or every other characteristic that can influence sporting performance. A class can therefore reduce one source of inequality without creating physiologically identical competitors. Trap: A and D both describe genuine complications in Para classification. The stem, however, asks why the system cannot create a completely level contest even when classification works as intended.
- A This is true and explains why Para classification is sport-specific. A below-elbow amputation may affect swimming more than running. It does not, however, explain why two athletes who have already been appropriately classified together may still possess unequal sporting advantages.
- B Para classification is designed to minimise the competitive effect of selected eligible impairments. It does not attempt to equalise height, cardiovascular capacity, limb proportions, technique, training, psychology or every other characteristic that can influence sporting performance. A class can therefore reduce one source of inequality without creating physiologically identical competitors.
- C Review statuses mean that some classifications may later be reconsidered. That concerns whether an athlete remains in the appropriate class, not the more fundamental reason competitors within a correctly allocated class can still differ substantially.
- D Different impairments may result in a similar degree of limitation in a particular sport and therefore place athletes in the same class. This is part of the classification method rather than evidence that classification is incapable of reducing the effect of impairment.
Question 4: show answer and explanation
Correct answer: D.
Only 22 of the 997 athletes at the Paris Olympics of 1900 were women.
The passage presents the participation figures for Paris 1900 as a historical fact: 22 of the 997 athletes were women. Trap: A, B and C all closely resemble claims actually made in the passage. Each becomes incorrect because it strengthens a scheduled, qualified or hypothetical statement into an unconditional fact.
- A The passage says Los Angeles 2028 is due to use seven weight classes for men and seven for women. The option strengthens a scheduled future arrangement into a statement of certainty about what will occur.
- B The passage says a below-elbow amputation can matter more in swimming than in running. The option removes that qualification and turns an example of how an impairment may affect sports differently into a universal claim.
- C New categories for athletes using gene editing or implanted devices are presented as one possible future response. Federations might create new categories, but they could instead regulate the technology while retaining existing divisions.
- D The passage presents the participation figures for Paris 1900 as a historical fact: 22 of the 997 athletes were women.