TPO 33 Integrated Writing Task

Both the reading and the listening sections are about carved stone balls. The author of the reading passage argues that there are several theories about their purpose and meaning. The lecturer, however challenges the claim made by the author. She is of the opinion that non of the presented theories in the reading passage are very convincing.

To begin with, the article argues that stone balls have been used as weapons for fighting or hunting. This argument is challenged by the professor. More specifically she claims that weapons such as arrowheads usually had some signs of wear; however, those balls did not have any sign. Additionally, she contends that if the balls have been used as weapons they would be cracked or have pieces broken of, however the surfaces of the balls are generally very well preserved and not damaged.

Secondly, the text suggests that carved stones were used as a way of measuring or weighing something. It further provides certain statistics that balls were always similar at size and represented some standards unit of measure. The lecturer, by contrast, rebuts this argument by mentioning that their masses very too considerably to have been used as uniform weights. She elaborates on this by bringing up the point that balls were made of different types of stone , each type has different density , some types are heavier than others. That is why the balls of the same size may have different weights. Therefore, the balls could not have been used as a primitive weighing system.

And finally the reading passage points out that balls may have been designed to show the importance of their owners in society. The lecturer rebuts this by noting that some stone balls were carved with intricate patterns and many have markings that are extremely simple, too simple to make the balls look like status symbols. In addition to this she contends that high-ranked people were buried with their possessions, however non of the carved stone balls have been found in tunes or graves. Thereby, it is unlikely that the balls were personal possessions that mark the person's status within the community.