chemistry

Up the Down Steroid

Up the Down Steroid is a chemistry topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Up the Down Steroid rather than just read about it. In short: "Up the Down Steroid" is the second episode in the eighth season of the American animated television series South Park, and the 113th episode of the series overall. Going by production order, it is the second episode of Season 8 instead of third.

Key takeaways

Up the Down Steroid belongs to chemistry; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Up the Down Steroid to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Up the Down Steroid from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

"Up the Down Steroid" is the second episode in the eighth season of the American animated television series South Park, and the 113th episode of the series overall. Going by production order, it is the second episode of Season 8 instead of third. The episode originally aired on Comedy Central in the United States on March 24, 2004. In the episode, Jimmy enters the special Olympics but starts using steroids to improve his performance while Cartman, believing he will have an advantage over the other kids, disguises himself as handicapped so that he can enter and win the $1,000 cash prize. The title of the episode is a parody of the book Up the Down Staircase.

Plot Timmy Burch and Jimmy Valmer are eager to represent Team USA at the 2004 World Kids Disability Games in Denver. Eric Cartman decides to fake being disabled and attempt to beat all the handicapped kids in the events to win the $1,000 prize. Jimmy is talked into taking steroids by Nathan to increase his chances of winning. Jimmy manages to keep his use of it a secret from everyone except for Timmy (who discovers the drugs after he accidentally dropped the bag and spilled the contents). While Timmy frowns on this, much to his frustration he is unable to explain the situation to the school counselor Mr. Mackey, due to his inability to say anything other than his own and Jimmy's names. Jimmy begins to neglect his girlfriend and studies as a result of his steroid use. When his girlfriend grows tired of neglect and announces she is leaving him, Jimmy flies into a steroid rage and savagely attacks his girlfriend and mother. Kyle Broflovski repeatedly tries to talk Cartman out of his plans, but is ignored. After Cartman learns that he must have a parent accompany him to the Games in order to sign up and compete, Cartman manipulates his mother to take him to the Games and she reluctantly accepts. When the Games arrive, Cartman finds that his expectations were mistaken and his plan has failed, as he is out-of-shape and actually much less athletic than the disabled competitors, who outperform him in every event. In contrast, Jimmy handily wins most of the events, much to Timmy's silent disapproval. At the closing ceremonies, the prizes are given by Mark McGwire, Jason Giambi and Barry Bonds- all of whom were ironically involved in baseball's steroids scandal. Jimmy sets multiple records and was named the 2004 games' "Special Olympian", winning the $1,000 prize in the process. Cartman, despite his poor performance, wins a "spirit award" for coming last — consisting of a $50 gift certificate for Shakey's Pizza. When he goes to collect the prize, Jimmy recognizes Cartman and is about to attack him for cheating, but Timmy intervenes, and Jimmy realizes that he is equally guilty of cheating himself. Jimmy confesses his drug use to the crowd and returns his medal, asking for his records to be cancelled and condemning those who use steroids as "pussies" (all the while the camera focuses on McGwire, Giambi, and Bonds). Jimmy bumps into McGwire, who commends him for being honest. Cartman then claims to Stan and Kyle that he pretended to be handicapped in order for Jimmy to learn his lesson. When it is obvious that they do not believe Cartman, he angrily tells Stan and Kyle to "grow up" and walks away.

Production There was some controversy surrounding "Up the Down Steroid" and the 2005 film The Ringer, as both feature the same plot: Someone pretending to be disabled in order to compete in the Special Olympics. According to the episode's DVD audio commentary, series co-creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone did not think that they ripped off The Ringer, since the idea to them did not seem hard to come up with, and they did not even think it was big enough for a twenty-minute episode, let alone a two-hour film. In the opening scene, the boys are playing the same "Investigative Reports with Bill Kurtis" funtime game as they did in the season four episode "Cartman Joins NAMBLA". The episode's title refers to the 1964 young adult novel, Up the Down Staircase, by Bel Kaufman, which was adapted into a film in 1967 starring Sandy Dennis. Trey Parker admitted he had to perform this story in a high school play and hated it. Additionally, Stone admitted in the commentary that he once pretended to be disabled to get into Six Flags Magic Mountain for half price.

Home media "Up the Down Steroid", along with the thirteen other episodes from South Park's eighth season, was released on a three-disc DVD set in the United States on August 29, 2006. The set includes brief audio commentaries by Parker and Stone for each episode. Up the Down Steroid was also released as part of The Cult of Cartman, a 2008 DVD compilation of Cartman-centric episodes.

See also 2000 Spanish Paralympic cheating scandal, with which Cartman's behavior has parallels to. Doping in sport

References

External links "Up the Down Steroid" Full episode at South Park Studios "Up the Down Steroid" at IMDb

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Up the Down Steroid

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Up the Down Steroid claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In chemistry, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Up the Down Steroid before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Up the Down Steroid ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Up the Down Steroid

In research: Up the Down Steroid appears in chemistry research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Up the Down Steroid in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Up the Down Steroid is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics Barry Bonds, Denver in fiction, Doping in sport, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Up the Down Steroid outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

Ask Teacher Smith questions about this articleOpens your AI tutor with a question about “Up the Down Steroid” →

Affiliate

Preply — study more efficiently by working with a personal tutor. 50% off.

How to study Up the Down Steroid in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Up the Down Steroid means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Up the Down Steroid out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Up the Down Steroid in simple terms?

Why does Up the Down Steroid matter?

Because it connects several chemistry ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Up the Down Steroid?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Up the Down Steroid.