Question

Hemingway is known for his journalistic writing style. Which of these excerpts is an example of that style?
A. “What I will do if he decides to go down, I don't know. What I'll do if he sounds and dies I don't know. But I'll do something. There are plenty of things I can do.”
B. “The spot was, indeed, a near relation of night, and when night showed itself an apparent tendency to gravitate together could be perceived in its shades and the scene.”
C. “Every now and then a shoal of flying fish, scared from the water under the bows, would leap into the air, and fall the next moment like a shower of silver into the sea.”
D. “A great elm tree spread its broad branches over it, at the foot of which bubbled up a spring of the softest and sweetest water, in a little well formed of a barrel.”

Answer 1

The correct answer is option A ("What I will do if he decides to go down, I don't know. What I'll do if he sounds and dies I don't know. But I'll do something. There are plenty of things I can do").

We refer to journalistic style in writing as the use of certain devices, structures and resources that are most commonnly associated with news articles, chronicles and similar kinds of pieces. They can be easily identified for the use of short sentences and paragraphs that have a very straight-forward feel to them. The message often feels urgent and we get the sense that the author is trying to quickly make their point.

Example "A" presents many of these features while none of the others are brief or to-the-point at all.

Hope this helps!