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  3. Like so many things of value, truth is not always easy to come by. What we regard as true shapes our beliefs, attitudes, and act

Like so many things of value, truth is not always easy to come by. What we regard as true shapes our beliefs, attitudes, and act

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问题     Like so many things of value, truth is not always easy to come by. What we regard as true shapes our beliefs, attitudes, and actions. Yet we can believe things that have no basis in fact. People are capable of embracing horrific precepts that seem incredible in retrospect. In Nazi Germany, Adolf Hitler had millions of followers who accepted his delusions about racial superiority. As Voltaire put it long before Hitler’s time, "Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. "
    We are surrounded by illusions, some created deliberately. They may be subtle or may affect us profoundly. Some illusions, such as films and novels, we seek out and appreciate. Others can make us miserable and even kill us. We need to know if particular foods that taste perfectly fine can hurt us in the short term(as with Salmonella contamination)or in the long term(cholesterol), whether a prevalent virus is so dangerous that we should avoid public places, and what problems a political candidate may cause or resolve if elected. Gaining insights about the truth often is a challenge, and misconceptions can be difficult to recognize.
    We often believe stories because they are the ones available. Most people would identify Thomas Edison as the inventor of the incandescent light bulb. Although Edison perfected a commercially successful design, he was preceded in the experimentation by British inventors Frederick de Moleyns and Joseph Swan, and by American J. W. Starr.
    The biggest enemies of truth are: people whose job is to sell us incomplete versions of the available facts, our willingness to believe what we want and the simple absence of accurate information. Companies advertising products on television do not describe the advantages of their competitors’ products any more than a man asking a woman to marry him encourages her to date other men before making up her mind. It is a social reality that people encourage one another to make important decisions with limited facts.
    Technology has simplified and complicated the fact-gathering process. The Internet allows us to check facts more easily, but it also disburses misinformation. Similarly, a belief that videos and photos necessarily represent reality ignores how easily they can be digitally altered. Unquestioning reliance on such forms of media makes us more susceptible to manipulators: those who want to deceive can dazzle us with a modern version of smoke and mirrors.
Advertising and making a marriage proposal are similar in that both______.
选项 A、encourage fair competition
B、give partial information
C、attack their enemies
D、take advantage of people’s hesitation
答案B
解析 根据文中第四段的内容可知，真理最大的敌人是：向我们兜售真相的不完整版本的那些人，我们愿意相信自己需要的事物，以及准确信息的缺乏。在电视上为其产品做广告宣传的公司决不会描述竞争对手产品的优点，正如向女人求婚的男人决不会在她作出决定之前就鼓励她去和别的男人约会。人们依据有限的真实信息促使彼此作出重要决定，这是一种社会现实。据此可知，文中例举广告与求婚的原因是两者存在相似之处，即提供的信息都不全面。B项正确。
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