Winning and success | HF Engelsk B | 18. august 2016
This study guide will help you focus on the topic of winning and success. We will show you examples from three texts that cover the topic and focus on the most significant elements that will be relevant for a discussion about winning and success. In these notes, we will focus on the summary of text 1, an outline of the attitudes towards winning and success present in the three texts, a comment on a quote from text 2, and help you discuss to what extent parents should teach their children to be winners.
Exam question
This study guide is based on this exam question in written English B HF from 18th of August, 2016:
Presentation of the topic
The complex topic of winning and success has been the subject of many debates, psychology books, or articles. This is because people’s attitudes and perspectives on the topic have changed over the years. Prior to the 1980s, winning and success were seen as something desirable which had to be achieved, being the mark of one’s value in society and as a human being. However, in the past thirty or forty years, these attitudes have become more nuanced, with some arguing that focusing only on winning and achieving success may affect our interactions with others and lead to disappointment and less fulfillment. Also, the very definitions of winning and success have been reassessed to focus less on the ultimate goal and more on the journey to that goal. In other words, desiring success is not wrong in itself; the problem lies with the way we define success and being a winner.
The three texts in your exam set focus on winning and success in connection with children and students and on the way we define success in sports and the academic environment.
Summary of “Our Unhealthy Obsession with Winning”
Text 1, “Our Unhealthy Obsession with Winning”, is a magazine article written by Tony Schwartz, and published in 2012 on the website of Harvard Business Review.
The author discusses the way people tend to see winning and success as an ultimate goal and as something to admire, starting off from the example of the Olympic winners. Though he appreciates the efforts and sacrifices of sportsmen and does not encourage recognition for mere participation, the author is skeptical about winning and success.
Tony Schwartz argues that an obsession with winning and success limits people, creating narrow goals. He argues that winning does not bring the estimated satisfaction and puts forward a new attitude to the issue. For Schwartz, winning is about all the failures on the way to the ultimate goal, about consistent efforts and perseverance and about adding value not only to one’s skills but also to the greater society. He supports these ideas through examples from the sports world such as that of Michael Phelps, Michel Jordan or Jimmy Connors and Andre Agassi.
Writing a summary
Before writing your own summary of the text, we highly recommend that you read Studienet's guide to writing a summary.
Further help
Do you want additional help with analysis of non-fiction? See our general guide to non-fiction analysis.