Question

(1) Reality show producers who give their "actors” scripts are not being unethical because everyone knows that the shows are scripted. (2) In the past few years, dozens of entertainment news sites have published articles about the use of scripts on reality shows. (3) One star of a popular reality show even read from her script as a joke on a radio show. (4) Furthermore, a recent study indicates that 86 percent of reality show viewers believe that the producers purposely create fights on the shows to make them cooler.
Which revision best improves the formality of the paragraph?

(A) using the contraction “aren’t” for “are not” in sentence 1
(B) breaking up sentence 2 into several short sentences
(C) replacing “popular” with “top” in sentence 3
(D) replacing “cooler” with “more dramatic” in sentence 4

Answer 1

(D) replacing “cooler” with “more dramatic” in sentence 4

The word "cooler" is slang and creates an informal tone. By changing it to "more dramatic" the formal tone is continued all the way to the end of the passage. Option A is not a good option because contractions should not be used in formal writing. Option B will not change the formality of the paragraph. Option C is also not a good choice, changing "popular" to "top" would not change the tone to being more formal.