Cross-text multiple matching
You are going to read four extracts from articles by critics about literary prizes. For questions 1-4, choose from the critics A-D. The critics may be chosen more than once.
What are literary prizes really worth?
Compare viewpoints across four writers
Critic A, publishing editor
An editor discusses sales, how judges decide, what happens to winning authors and the kind of books that win.
Nobody who has worked in publishing doubts what a major prize does to sales: a shortlisted novel can sell more in a fortnight than in the previous year, and the winner’s figures go higher still. What I doubt is the quality of the decisions. Five judges with different tastes rarely agree on the most daring book; they settle instead on the one nobody objects to strongly, which is how adventurous fiction keeps losing to the merely accomplished. The effect on writers worries me too. A prize arrives with expectations attached, and I have watched more than one author freeze under the weight of following it up. And the books themselves have started to look alike: earnest, carefully researched, gesturing towards a large social theme. Novelists are not fools; they can see what wins.
Which critic has a different view from the others on how much prizes increase the sales of shortlisted books?
Which critic shares B’s opinion of how judging panels reach their decisions?
Which critic expresses a similar view to C regarding the effect of winning a prize on a writer’s career?
Which critic takes a different view from the others about the range of books that prizes reward?
Répondez aux 4 questions pour vérifier (0 sur 4 faites)