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How to write, according to the bestselling novelist of all time

Everyone has a book inside them, or so the saying goes. In this day and age, those who want help coaxing the story out can receive instruction online from some of the world’s most popular authors. Lee Child and Harlan Coben, who have sold hundreds of millions of books between them, teach thriller writing; Jojo Moyes offers tips on romance yarns. And now Agatha Christie, the world’s bestselling writer of fiction, with more than 2 bn copies sold, is instructing viewers in the art of the whodunnit—even though she died in 1976.

Christie’s course is the result not of recently unearthed archival footage, but artificial intelligence. BBC Maestro, an online education platform, brought the idea to the Christie family, which still controls 36% of Agatha Christie Ltd (AMC Networks, an entertainment giant, owns the rest). They consented to bring the “Queen of Crime” back to life, to teach the mysterious flair of her style.

A team of almost 100—including Christie scholars as well as AI specialists—worked on the project. Vivien Keene, an actor, provided a stand-in for the author; Christie’s face was mapped on top. Crucially, Ms Keene’s eerily credible performance employs only Christie’s words: a tapestry of extracts from her own writings, notebooks and interviews.

In this way, the creator of Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple shares handy writing tips, such as the neatest ways to dispatch fictional victims. Firearms bring ballistic complications. Be wary of poisons, as each works in a unique way. Novice authors can “always rely on a dull blow to the head”.

Many of Christie’s writing rules concern playing fair. She practiced misdirection and laid “false clues” alongside true ones, but insisted that her plots do not cheat or hide key evidence: “I never deceive my readers.” In sections devoted to plot and setting, she explains how to plant key clues “in plain sight” and plan events with detailed “maps and diagrams”. She advises viewers to watch and listen to strangers on buses or in shops and to spice up motives for murder with a love triangle.

Some of the most engaging sections come from “An Autobiography”, published posthumously in 1977: Poirot’s origins among the Belgian refugees who reached Devon during the First World War, or fond memories of her charismatic, feckless brother Monty, who had “broken the laws of a lot of countries” and provided the inspiration for many of Christie’s “wayward young male figures”.

By relying on Christie’s own words, BBC Maestro hopes to avoid charges of creepy pedagogical deepfakery. At the same time, it is that focus on quotation which limits the course’s value as a creative-writing toolbox. The woman born Agatha Miller in 1890 speaks from her own time and place. She tells wannabe writers to use snowstorms to isolate murder scenes (as they bring down telephone wires) and cites the clue-generating value of railway timetables, ink stains and cut-up newspapers. These charming details are irrelevant to modern scribblers.

Yet anachronism is not the course’s biggest flaw: it is that it lacks vitality. Christie enjoyed a richer life than learners will glean from this prim phantom: she was a wartime nurse (hence her deep knowledge of toxins), thwarted opera singer, keen surfer and archaeological expert who joined her second husband on digs in Iraq. Furthermore, her juiciest mysteries smash crime-writing rules. The narrator does it; the detective does it; all the suspects do it. Sometimes there’s no detective: in “The Hollow” (1946) Christie regretted that Poirot appeared at all. With its working-class antihero and gothic darkness, “Endless Night” (1967) shatters every Christie cliché. This high-tech, retrofitted version of the author feels smaller and flatter than the ingenious original.

The Economist, May, 8th, 2025

PART 1: READING COMPREHENSION

The War at Home: The Struggle for Veterans to Find Jobs

In today's tough and competitive job market, it can be challenging for any adult to land a decent job. Though education can definitely improve outcomes, sometimes it's not just abont the degree. Experience can also play a major role in helping people find jobs. Yet in some cases, if you do not have the right kind of experience, this may be of little help. Just ask one of the many college-educated military veterans who serve their country only to return to find a job market that will treat them as rookies.

Army veteran John Lee Dumas said he had zero anxieties about finding a job after graduating college and had been told that his military experience would give him a leg up on other candidates. But things did not turn out that way.

"I quickly found out that I was lumped together with recent college grads for entry-level positions, and that an employee that had two years' experience at a job in a similar industry was considered way more qualified than I was despite my four years as an officer in the army", Dumas said.

When Dumas did find work, he said it was difficult to acclimate to the civilian Office environment.

"I often found that my peers and above had a hard time dealing with my direct approach and attitude about tackling problems head on, often asking for forgiveness rather than permission", he said.

One issue is that veterans are too modest when it comes to stating their accomplishments in the military.

"For some reason, I've had veterans not tell me about their awards and honors, but it should all be listed - from commander' s coins to medals of honor," Hurwitz said.

Navy veteran Tom Graves, who has a career in world force development helping companies understand the benefits of hiring skilled and experienced military veterans, agreed.

(Adapted from http://www.onlinecollege.org)

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Pontus

Pontus is a non-playable faction in Rome: Total War. Pontus was a Hellenistic Kingdom on the southern coast of the Black Sea.

Pontus are an eastern faction, based in Asia Minor (Modern-day Turkey), having their origins with an ambitious Persian noble who siezed the area when Alexander's empire broke up. They were best known for their support for the pirates of Cilicia and their subsequent defeat by Pompey.

A refreshingly different faction, Pontus are similar in some ways to the Seleucids, but mainly they are unique. With a large amount of missile cavalry, chariots chariot archers, Cappadocian Lancers and Pikemen, they have a different balance to most factions, while not severely lacking in any department except heavy infantry.

Pontus is a small faction in Asia Minor. While their army is relatively weak at the low initial development levels of Asia Minor, Asia Minor itself is a relatively easy part of the map to take and hold. Trade and growth are relatively good around the area and Rhodes, Crete and the Seleucids are soon ripe for the picking. Tactically, Pontus are an eastern faction. Expect to field a mobile army of mainly missile units. There are Macedonian-influenced Pikemen though, allowing a solid infantry line to be made when dealing with the western armies and to provide more strategic options.

Pontus have mostly the basic eastern units, but with skirmisher cavalry instead of mounted archers. Scythed Chariots and Chariot Archers are also available, allowing further flexibility. The infantry is a little ticklish at times though; The early infantry suffers from poor morale and a lack of stopping power, although Eastern Infantry are very good at stopping enemy chariots. Pikemen and Cappadocian Lancers are available later on though, allowing more Seleucid-influenced tactics to be used to good effect.

It was founded by Mithridates I in 291 BC and lasted until its conquest by the Roman Empire in 63 BC. Despite being ruled by a dynasty which was a descendant of the Persian Achaemenid Empire it became hellenized due to the influence of the Greeks on the black sea and the smaller Hellenistic kingdoms in the Middle East. Pontus grew to its largest extent under Mithridates VI the great, who conquered Colchis, Cappadocia, Bithynia, Lesser Armenia, the Greek colonies of the Tauric Chersonesosand for a brief time the Roman province of Asia.

Pontus starts in north and east Asia Minor, north of the Seleucid Empire, and west of Armenia. Their cities are:

Sinope - Pontic Capital; Region - Pontus

Mazaka - Pontic Large Town; Region - Cappadocia

Pontus infantry units include the feared Bronze Shield Pikemen, the elite of the army of Pontus, among the heirs of the world-conquering phalanxes of Alexander the Great. Pontus has effective cavalry including Cappadocian Cavalry, which are are excellent horsemen, best suited to charging into and breaking through enemy formations with their lances. Pontic heavy cavalry are javelin-armed horsemen who can also fight hand-to-hand - a potent combination in one force.

After a long struggle with Rome in the Mithridatic wars, Pontus was defeated, part of it was incorporated into the Roman Empire as the province Bithynia et Pontus and the eastern half survived as a client Kingdom. The Bosporan Kingdom also remained independent under Pharnaces II as an ally and friend of Rome. Colchis was also made into a client Kingdom. Pharnaces II later made an attempt at reconquering Pontus. During the civil war of Caesar and Pompey, he invaded Asia Minor, taking Colchis, lesser Armenia, Pontus and Cappadocia and defeating a Roman army at Nicopolis. Caesar responded swiftly and defeated him at Zela, where he uttered the famous phrase 'Veni, Vidi, Vici' (i came, i saw, i conquered). Pontic kings continued to rule the client Kingdom of Pontus, Colchis and Cilicia until Polemon II was finally forced to abdicate the Pontic throne by the Romans in 62 AD.

https://totalwar.fandom.com/wiki/Pontus

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Cancer therapies are getting a makeover

By Vanessa Chalmers, Health Features Editor

Cancer is no longer a death sentence when diagnosed, thanks to the ongoing emergence of treatments that can extend lives as well as better detection methods to find the disease earlier.Scientists have learned a lot about the immune response to cancer and are now harnessing it.When we hear the word vaccine, we typically think of it as preventing disease.But in this case, vaccines are being used as a treatment. Once injected they train the immune system to recognise and fight cancer cells. The body itself is recruited to kill the cancer, rather than relying on medicines.The process leaves healthy cells untouched, unlike chemotherapy, which kills healthy tissue and causes debilitating symptoms. NHS England's national cancer director, Dame Cally Palmer, said cancer vaccines being trialled could mark a huge step in treating the disease.There are also personalised vaccines which are designed specifically for an individuals cancer, based on their genetics.The challenges with personalised vaccines and other hugely advanced cancer therapies is they are very expensive to develop - and the question is whether the NHS will be able to afford such therapies when they come to fruition.

https://www.thesun.co.uk/health/30417145/cancer-vaccine-stops-tumou rs-growing-advanced-disease/

READ TEXT III AND ANSWER THE QUESTION THAT FOLLOWS IT:

Plastic Dreams

by Sarah Thompson

Plastic dreams, oh plastic dreams, a vision turned nightmare,

Once a symbol of progress, now a burden we must bear.

Our landfills overflow with your synthetic remains,

A haunting testament to our unsustainable chains.

Plastic dreams, oh plastic dreams, a promise unfulfilled,

Your convenience a facade, your consequences concealed.

Let us wake from this slumber, this toxic desire,

To create a world where nature's essence can inspire.

In our hands lies the power, to choose a different fate,

To abandon plastic dreams and embrace a sustainable state.

For only through conscious choices, can we break this vicious spell,

And ensure a future where our planet and poetry can dwell.

From: https://poemverse.org/poems-about-plasticwaste/#2_the_sea_s_lament_by_michael_anderson

Read the text to answer the question from.

It happens that the publication of this edition of the Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary comes 250 years after the appearance of the first comprehensive dictionary of the English language, compiled by Samuel Johnson. Much has changed since then. The English that Johnson described in 1755 was relatively well defined, still essentially the national property of the British. Since then, it has dispersed and diversified, has been adopted and adapted as an international means of communication by communities all over the globe. English is now the name given to an immensely diverse variety of different usages. This obviously poses a problem of selection for the dictionary maker: which words are to be included in a dictionary, and thus granted recognition as more centrally or essentially English than the words that are left out?

Johnson did not have to deal with such diversity, but he too was exercised with this question. In his Plan of an English Dictionary, published in 1747, he considers which words it is proper to include in his dictionary; whether ‘terms of particular professions’, for example, were eligible, particularly since many of them had been derived from other languages. ‘Of such words,’ he says, ‘all are not equally to be considered as parts of our language, for some of them are naturalized and incorporated, but others still continue aliens...’. Which words are deemed to be sufficiently naturalized or incorporated to count as ‘parts of our language’, ‘real’ or proper English, and thus worthy of inclusion in a dictionary of the language, remains, of course, a controversial matter. Interestingly enough, even for Johnson the status of a word in the language was not the only, nor indeed the most important consideration. For being alien did not itself disqualify words from inclusion; in a remark which has considerable current resonance he adds: ‘some seem necessary to be retained, because the purchaser of the dictionary will expect to find them’. And, crucially, the expectations that people have of a dictionary are based on what they want to use it for. What Johnson says of his own dictionary would apply very aptly to The Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary (OALD): ‘The value of a work must be estimated by its use: It is not enough that a dictionary delights the critic, unless at the same time it instructs the learner...’.

(Widdowson, H. Hornby, A.S. 2010. Adaptado)

Read text 1 and answer question.

The Times They Are A-Changin' - By Bob Dylan

Come gather 'round, people

Wherever you roam

And admit that the waters around you have

grown

And accept it that soon you'll be drenched to the

bone

If your time to you is worth saving

Then you better start swimmin' or you'll sink like

a stone

For the times, they are a-changin'

Come writers and critics who prophesize with

your pen

And keep your eyes wide, the chance won't

come again

And don't speak too soon, for the wheel's still in

spin

And there's no tellin' who that it's namin'

For the loser now will be later to win

For the times, they are a-changin'

Come senators, congressmen, please heed the

call

Don't stand in the doorway

Don't block up the hall

For he that gets hurt will be he who has stalled

The battle outside ragin'

Will soon shake your windows and rattle your

walls

For the times, they are a-changin'

Come mothers and fathers

Throughout the land

And don't criticize what you can't understand

Your sons and your daughters

Are beyond your command

Your old road is rapidly aging

Please get out of the new one if you can't lend

your hand

The line, it is drawn

The curse, it is cast

The slow one now will later be fast

As the present now will later be past

The order is rapidly fading

And the first one now will later be last

For the times, they are a-changin'

For the times, they are a-changin'

Read text 1 and answer question.

The Times They Are A-Changin' - By Bob Dylan

Come gather 'round, people

Wherever you roam

And admit that the waters around you have

grown

And accept it that soon you'll be drenched to the

bone

If your time to you is worth saving

Then you better start swimmin' or you'll sink like

a stone

For the times, they are a-changin'

Come writers and critics who prophesize with

your pen

And keep your eyes wide, the chance won't

come again

And don't speak too soon, for the wheel's still in

spin

And there's no tellin' who that it's namin'

For the loser now will be later to win

For the times, they are a-changin'

Come senators, congressmen, please heed the

call

Don't stand in the doorway

Don't block up the hall

For he that gets hurt will be he who has stalled

The battle outside ragin'

Will soon shake your windows and rattle your

walls

For the times, they are a-changin'

Come mothers and fathers

Throughout the land

And don't criticize what you can't understand

Your sons and your daughters

Are beyond your command

Your old road is rapidly aging

Please get out of the new one if you can't lend

your hand

The line, it is drawn

The curse, it is cast

The slow one now will later be fast

As the present now will later be past

The order is rapidly fading

And the first one now will later be last

For the times, they are a-changin'

For the times, they are a-changin'

O texto seguinte servirá de base para responder à questão.

Vianden Castle History

(1º§) The rocky outcrop above the modern town of Vianden was first fortified in late antiquity. Excavations at the foot of the castle chapel in 1994 led to the discovery that parts of the crumbling masonry of the Late Antique tower must have existed in Merovingian times and that this square building, the only surviving structure from the period known as Late Antiquity, was incorporated into the first medieval castle.

(2º§) The first fortification was built at the beginning of Late Antiquity on the castle hill at an ancient crossroads, where a branch of the great Roman road Reims-Cologne through the Ardennes and the valley of Our led to the valley of the Sauer and through Echternach to Bitburg and Trier, at that time a thriving metropolis.

(3º§) After the Vianden fort was abandoned around 430/440 AD, the Roman Tower seems to have been sufficiently usable to remain a decisive element in the subsequent periods of castle building up to the High Middle Ages.

(4º§) The first medieval fortification was erected on the rocky spur overlooking Vianden around the year 1000. The main part of this fortification consisted of an oval ring wall. This defensive wall, meticulously reinforced with small slabs of slate, was exactly one meter wide. As with the ancient wall, this special construction technique allowed archaeologists to retrace it virtually its entire length. The old late antique moat also remained in use during this period. The entire inner surface of the fortification was leveled by filling the lower defensive wall with stones and earth. This complex also included a hall, used for administrative purposes, and a chapel, which was installed in the remains of the late antique tower.

(5º§) Vianden Castle was extensively rebuilt around 1170. The remains of the wooden scaffolding found in the new residential tower made it possible to determine the date of construction using the three-ring dating technique.

(6º§) Important architectural contributions were made, in Gothic style, between the 13th and 14th centuries by the Counts of Vianden. In 1417 the castle became a possession of the Orange-Nassau family who made changes in the Renaissance style. The castle was long in the possession of the grand-ducal family until it became state property in 1977. After this date, it was restored and shines in its former glory. Today, Vianden Castle is one of the most important architectural monuments in Europe being one of the largest and most beautiful feudal residences of the Romanesque and Gothic periods. In the entrance area there is a modern interactive visitor center.

https://www.histouring.com/en/historical-places/vianden-castle/