Question: I am currently waiting for peer reviews of two books I've worked on: one sole-authored, one co-authored. We don't talk much about the experience of waiting for reviews, and it's not something that appears to have been researched. Yet it's something everyone doing academic work has to go through and it may be bad for our mental health. I'm finding it particularly difficult at the moment because a lot rides on these reviews. The sole-authored book, which is on a contentious topic, has already had one set of reviews. Reviewer 1 was utterly damning, saying "I couldn't find anything to praise". Luckily, Reviewers 2 and 3 were more measured, offering both praise and constructive criticism, and their input helped me to revise and strengthen the typescript. However, in the process, my editor and I realised that we needed further reviews from people with a particular kind of specialist knowledge. My editor approached around ten potential reviewers, but only one agreed to do the job. So I'm gibbering what if that person agrees with Reviewer 1? The co-authored book is in a contentious format. My co-authors and I decided that I would be the person to liaise with publishers, as I have form in this process. The last time I liaised with academic publishers for a co-authored book was in the early 2000s, and I'd forgotten how heavily responsible it makes me feel. Fortunately, I've found a publisher that is interested and has sent the book out for reviews, to two professional academics and two students. This is great and terrifying but at least there are four reviewers. Even so, what if they all think it's rubbish? In many ways I love the peer review system. I welcome feedback on my writing, and I'm not at all averse to constructive criticism. I am by no means arrogant enough to think I can write a good book without input from others. Yet peer review, as a process, is fraught with uncertainty. Comments may not be constructive, or may not come at all. They may be positive, or negative, or in between, or a mixture. The time to write the book probably lasted Pick the correct answer from the following options: - A minute - not enough information - A year - A month
Answer: A year

Question: He picked me up at my house, and after getting back on the main road he turned up the volume on the radio. "Why do you even listen to that stuff?" I asked. It was schlock-rock, simple and unadorned wailing backed by incessantly grating guitars. "I don't really know." "You don't actually like it, do you?" I knew he didn't; I knew what he preferred. His apartment walls were lined with recordings of classical, even archaic music, European folk instrumentals. Maybe rock, once in a while, but he had had something amplified and pitch-altered on every time we'd been together lately. "I think we listen to pop music to punish ourselves," he said. "An aural bed of nails to compensate for our sins." "Those sins being...?" "I don't know... sometimes, don't you ever get so sick of everything you just want to cram your ears full of garbage to spite it all?" This was not normal second-date dialogue, but Phillip and I had known each other for a long time. "It's like you'd rather inflict pain," he said, "like you want to inflict pain on yourself, just for pure spite against... the stuff around us." "You'd choke on garbage to get back at a culture who would do it for you anyway?" "Yeah, kind of. Does that make sense?" "In a very cliched, pop-psychology sort of way, yes." I turned down the volume, then shut the radio off entirely. "Don't you ever want to hurt like that?" he asked. "It's why you read some thriller instead of a classic, it's why you watch TV instead of reading a book, it's why you watch a sitcom instead of PBS, it's why you watch Family Guy instead of the Simpsons." (I might have snorted at this point.) "Because you have to do the bad thing." Phillip and the narrator had known each other for: Pick the correct answer from the following options: - many years - They had just met - a couple weeks - not enough information
Answer: many years

Question: I was 35 weeks pregnant when I had my stroke. For weeks prior to the event I kept experiencing 'visual disturbances.' I felt when I was reading a newspaper or book a sense that my eyes were crossing. I'd feel aware right before it would occur and I would rush to look in a mirror only to discover my eyes were not crossing. I informed my OB who blamed it on the blood vessels in my eyes enlarging due to pregnancy. Ummm ok. You know more than me. Later I was told by a surgeon what I was experiencing was 'textbook' for the passing of blood clots through my occipital area of the brain! The feeling would eventually subside. I awoke one morning feeling 'kind of fuzzy' headed. Like I had slept too hard. I sat with my husband at the kitchen table for our morning coffee and newspaper and for no reason I could imagine I was unable to swallow my coffee and it dribbled out the left side of my mouth. My husband asked me what was going on and I apparently told him, I was 'stroking' out. He got up from the table assuming I was OK and went off to take his morning shower. While in the shower it occurred to him something might not be right. He came back to the table where I was struggling to lift myself from the chair. I put my hands on the table to lift my body and my left hand kept sliding off the edge. He finally got behind me and tried to lift me under my arms and I crumbled to the floor. He then called my OB and told him he thought I'd had a stroke. My OB immediately expressed his doubt but my husband was advised to call an ambulance to get me to the ER. I never really experienced pain from the stroke. The narrator's probably believes that: Pick the correct answer from the following options: - The OB should have helped more. - The surgeon was wrong. - Her husband didn't care. - not enough information
Answer:
The OB should have helped more.