Part 1. Definition
Write the right answer to the question based on the context passage.
Part 2. Example
Television drama's whole point is to bring you through an often slow start, followed by a complex development to a point where there are two or three potential dénouements before, "Cut!", it is the end of the episode and you will have to await the "right answer" in the following week's show.
This post came to me at 10pm last night, on Day 16 of this challenge, after a day of holidaying in London and with my head (and feet) too weary to put finger to touchscreen.
Mrs Mc and I had just watched another live instalment of Broadchurch, murder mystery extraordinaire, particularly since in the second series there is no actual fresh murder to investigate. The verdict is about to be given on the accused killer from Series 1 when the inevitable happens... Cue title music.
This moment has even gained a moniker in British homes, based on the theme tune to the real masters of the four-times-a-week cliffhanger, London-based soap opera Eastenders. It's call a "ba...ba...ba...ba, ba, ba-ba-ba-ba" (YouTube will provide overseas readers with auditory explanation).
Eastenders is such a master of writing in the perfect pace that every 28 minute episode ends with a tantalising screen freeze on the latest shocked face / smirking baddy / confused victim. For really big stories the cliffhanger can last significantly longer. This week, to celebrate the show's 30 year birthday, we will finally find out the answer to a question unanswered for the past 14 months: "Who killed Lucy Beale?"
Now, most classrooms do not involve murder, incest, dodgy deals and danger, but "good teaching" encourages a type of pacing that totally ignores the ingredients that have millions in the edges of their seats every day: the good old cliffhanger. In fact, we see teachers giving away the punchline at the beginning: "Today we are learning this:...". Question: What was the soap opera admired by British people that the author says is a master of writing?
Answer: Eastenders
Explanation: The seventh sentence of the passage clearly states that Eastenders is master of writing. So, the answer is Eastenders.
Part 3. Exercise
I have a chronic illness, and so I received quite a few sterling gems in the months between onset and accurate diagnosis. I had one GP — let's call him Dr Douche. I promise, it's the kindest way I could describe him.
"The jacket means I know things."
He came up with wilder and wilder theories as to why I was sick, and kept getting sicker. It should be said beforehand that few of these theories were embodied. He was sure it was something in my ladybrains that was preventing proper function of the rest of me.
Dr Douche said so much weird, wild, and just-plain-unbelievable crap over the course of my diagnosis that someday I may create a novel that incorporates it all. But this here has to be the blue ribbon winner.
I was describing a symptom to him: every time I got up in the morning, when I first stood, my heart would pound, my heart rate would accelerate, and I'd feel dizzy. After a few probing questions — (only in the morning? — no, but it's worst in the morning)…
"Maybe," he said sensitively, "you're afraid."
"Of standing?" I asked, just to be sure. "You think I'm afraid of… standing up." Maybe he meant there was some kind of existential fear, like, we're all afraid, it's a big old universe out there, and he wanted some comfort and reassurance.
Nope.
The man genuinely thought I had such a profound fear of verticality, that I was having a near-panic in response to being upright.
POTS, folks. It was POTS.
Literally THE most common sign/symptom/syndrome of autonomic dysfunction. The most common one.
He could've confirmed right there in the office with a poor man's tilt table test, if he knew to… Mayo Clinic had to confirm with expensive instruments because he'd never heard of a disease that affects 1/100 teenagers and between 1–3 million people in the United States!
Would've done better with this Doctor. Question: Who made an improbably diagnosis?
Answer:
Dr. Douche