C1 Advanced Cross-text Multiple Matching – test 6. Media critic, columnist, sociologist, and former participant of a dating show evaluate reality shows: manipulation, responsibility of producers, and what these programs say about society.

C1 Advanced Cross-text Multiple Matching – reality TV

Below you will find four short texts (A–D) – opinions of different people on the same topic. Just like in the Reading and Use of English Part 6 exam: 4 questions, and most of them require comparing texts. The most important types of questions:

• Which writer shares A’s view on…? – you are looking for an author who thinks the same as A,
• Which writer has a different view from the others on…? – three authors agree, one does not,
• Which writer, like/unlike B, …? – first determine what exactly B claims.

Test 6 from the C1 Advanced Cross-text Multiple Matching series. Watch out for questions with unlike – you are looking for an author who says something contrary to the indicated person.

Real life or pure invention?

A – Rachel Ford, media critic

Reality television likes to present itself as an unscripted window onto ordinary lives. It is nothing of the kind. Producers select participants for their volatility, deprive them of sleep and supply them with alcohol, then engineer situations designed to provoke arguments. Most viewers have little idea how much of what they watch has been deliberately staged. None of this would matter so much if the participants were properly protected, but too often they are not. Young people with little experience of the media are thrown into intense public scrutiny and then abandoned once the cameras stop rolling. Broadcasters have a duty of care that, on current evidence, they are failing to meet.

B – Gareth Price, television columnist

Every few years there is a fresh wave of hand-wringing about reality television, and every time I struggle to understand what the fuss is about. These programmes are entertainment, no more and no less. Audiences are perfectly aware that the situations are contrived, in the same way that wrestling fans know the fights are choreographed – that is part of the fun. As for participants, they are adults who apply in their thousands, fully understanding what the experience involves. I would not want to appear on such a programme myself, but I see no reason to deny others the chance, or to treat viewers as if they cannot tell the difference between television and real life.

C – Dr Amira Haddad, socjolog

Whatever one thinks of its artistic merits, reality television is an extraordinarily rich source for anyone interested in how a society sees itself. The kinds of people who are cast, the behaviour that is rewarded and punished, the reactions of audiences on social media – all of these reveal attitudes to class, gender and success that are otherwise difficult to observe. Critics often accuse such programmes of making people shallower or more aggressive, but I think that gets the relationship the wrong way round. Reality TV does not so much shape our values as hold up a mirror to them, and what we see there is not always comfortable.

D – Jess Morgan, była uczestniczka

I went on a dating show at twenty-two, and I knew perfectly well what I was letting myself in for – or so I thought. What I had not anticipated was how completely the editing would turn me into someone else. Hours of ordinary conversation were cut away, and a few sharp remarks were stitched together to create a villain. Strangers sent me abusive messages for months. The production company offered a single phone call with a counsellor after the series ended, which was nowhere near enough. Even so, I do not regret taking part. I made lifelong friends and learned a great deal about myself. I just wish someone had prepared me better for what came afterwards.