Part 4: Writing to Evaluate Mortimer's Style Answers

Read the passage from The Time Traveler's Guide to Elizabethan England.Perhaps the most difficult thing to come to terms with is the scale of death. Influenza, for example, is an affliction which you no doubt have come across. However, you have never encountered anything like Elizabethan flu. It arrives in December 1557 and lasts for eighteen months. In the ten-month period August 1558 to May 1559 the annual death rate almost trebles to 7.2 percent (normally it is 2.5 percent). More than 150,000 people die from it—5 percent of the population. This is proportionally much worse than the great influenza pandemic of 1918–19 (0.53 percent mortality).

Read the sentence.Lots of writers have written good stuff other than books, like stuff for movies.

Before writing her essay, Larissa asked herself the following question.What is my goal for writing?

Which sentence uses precise, domain-specific wording?

Read the literary analysis paragraph.In Parasite, author Mira Grant’s writing style helps readers examine the dangers of medical technology. Grant uses precise wording to help readers grasp advanced medical concepts. Her clear style allows readers to explore a world that might otherwise be beyond them.

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Read the literary analysis paragraph.Shakespeare’s writing style reveals information about attitudes toward the landscape. His precise word choice provides detailed descriptions of the outdoors. In Titus Andronicus, he uses words like "ruthless,” "vast,” and "gloomy” to describe forests. Although he is known as the "playwright’s playwright,” Shakespeare could have been a travel guide.

Read the sentence.The playwright created a tragedy with nice characterizations.

To analyze an author’s style, which elements should the reader identify? Check all that apply.

Read the passage from The Time Traveler's Guide to Elizabethan England.If you want to know which years are a good time to visit and which years to avoid, the following is a guide to the extremes. The years of greatest plenty—i.e., those in which the price of grain is 20 percent or more below the average—are 1564, 1566, 1569–71, 1583–84, 1587–88, 1592–93, and 1602, the very best being 1592 and 1593, when grain prices are just 56 percent and 65 percent of the average.