Banana Story
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Approach:  Station
ACCESS
Level: Year 8
Focus: Comprehending literal meaning; analysing and interpreting  
Resources:
Highlighter
FRAME 208Kb
Questions/instructions:  


A. Read the story.

B. Decide whether each sentence below is a fact or an opinion. Circle your answer.

C. On the story, use the highlighter pen to mark the parts that you said are facts.

Banana Story

Overripe bananas aren’t much good to eat. But they do make good banana cake and they can be used to help ripen other fruit. Ripe bananas give off a gas called ethylene. This gas makes fruit ripen faster. One way to ripen fruit is to put it in a plastic bag with a banana and seal it. Then the ethylene won’t escape into the air. Apples are also good at helping other fruit ripen.

Bananas are very popular in New Zealand. New Zealanders eat more bananas than many other people. Making sure there are enough bananas for New Zealanders to eat is not easy. Bananas grow in warm countries and to get here they need to be put on ships. But the ethylene from bananas can be a problem. One ripe banana could make all the other bananas ripen and rot before they get to New Zealand. So the bananas sent here are completely green and are kept cool on the ship. When they arrive in New Zealand they are kept away from other fruit and in cool storage rooms until they are needed in the shops.

A banana ripener is someone who checks how fast the bananas are ripening. The banana ripener regularly checks to see if any bananas have started to turn yellow. If they have then they are taken away. A few days before the bananas are needed in the shops the banana ripener releases some ethylene gas and the bananas start to go yellow.
 
% responses
2008 ('04)
y8
1. You can do only two things with overripe bananas.
Opinion
59 (59)
2. The best way to ripen fruit is to put it with a banana.
Opinion
44 (47)
3. Bananas need to be kept cool on the ships.
 Fact:
(“So the bananas sent here are completely green and are kept cool on the ship.”)
yes, with correct highlighting
66 (72)
yes, but with no correct highlighting
20 (17)
4. Bananas and apples release ethylene gas.
Fact
80 (82)
Opinion
18 (17)
5. Being a banana ripener is a hard job.
Opinion
84 (84)
6. Ethylene gas causes bananas to go yellow.
Fact:
(“A few days before the bananas are needed in the shops the banana ripener releases some ethylene gas and the bananas start to go yellow.”)
yes, with correct highlighting
46 (48)
yes, but without correct highlighting
35 (34)

Total score:
8–9
32 (32)
7
21 (23)
6
18 (24)
5
15 (10)
0–4
14 (11)
Subgroup Analysis [Click on charts to enlarge] :
Year 8
Commentary:
Many year 8 students were not confident in distinguishing facts from opinions. The result was a very wide distribution of marks for all groups, with girls and Pakeha students having markedly more high scores. There were noticeably more low scores in 2008 than in 2004.