Question

Do you think telling lies, whether a little or a lot, isn’t that big of a deal? Well, that depends on the situation. If someone asks, “Does this dress make me look fat?” we might all lie somewhat. We might say, “Of course not. You look great.” Lying to spare someone’s feelings is one thing. Lying to destroy someone’s character or fame is another.

“What’s really terrible is that you can’t undo a big lie,” says a minister we’ll call Morgan. “I promise if you go house to house to say, ‘I feel terrible I wrongly accused my neighbor of stealing,’ the lie will spread like a fire fueled by gasoline. You can’t call back a lie very easily.”

Morgan goes on to say that lies have hurt people more than guns.

“We have a grandfather in our church whose former son-in-law told people the man treated his own children cruelly,” Morgan says. “To this day, we don’t know whether it is true or not. I would tend to doubt it, but I can’t take a chance, especially if he is working with young people in our church.”

Disarming someone who lies is tough. It’s like disarming someone who’s prepared to fire. That’s why our society is full of people who are forced to cover up the lies of other people.

“I worked with a man who was stealing money from our employer,” says a man we’ll call Fred. “He was so good at lying and doctoring the books (做假账) that it would have taken an FBI agent to stop him. I worried, ‘If I turned him in, and he got out of the trouble, my career at our company would come to an end.’”

Fred says he came up with a plan to drop hints (暗示) to the company owner. “I found printed materials on monitoring possibly dishonest employees. I started mailing them to the company owner without leaving my name. Then one day, over lunch, I told my boss he should have the books checked carefully. He got the hint.”

Fred told us that when the books were checked, the dishonest co-worker tried to blame him for the errors. However, Fred told the company owner he had been dropping hints for some time. The boss got the picture. Fred kept his job. The dishonest guy was fired.

Figuring out how to make a liar public takes work. It can be done, but you might have to move at the pace of a turtle. The slower you move, the more control you will have. You have to give others time to take in the truth.

1.The underlined phrase “spare someone’s feelings” in Paragraph 1 can be replaced by .

A. destroy someone’s feelings B. avoid hurting someone

C. put someone in a bad mood D. express someone’s ideas

2.Which of the following can be used to conclude Paragraph 2?

A. It’s no use crying over spilt milk. B. Every man has his faults.

C. There is no smoke without fire. D. Pride goes before a fall.

3.How does the author develop this passage?

A. By listing numbers. B. By making comparisons.

C. By giving examples. D. By following order of time.

4.What can we know from the passage?

A. It was true that the grandfather treated his own children cruelly.

B. It is not difficult to persuade a dishonest man into telling the truth.

C. Fred’s boss believed the dishonest employee’s words and fired Fred.

D. To make a liar public, we should figure out effective ways in advance.

1.B 2.A 3.C 4.D 【解析】本文主要谈论说谎的危害和如何让说谎者现出原形。你认为说谎，不管是一点点还是很多，都不是什么大不了的事吗？那要看情况而定。撒谎以避免伤害别人的感情是一回事。说谎诋毁某人的品格或名声是另一回事。举了摩根的邻居的前女婿说虐待孩子，说明消除对撒谎人的敌意很难，说谎比抢更伤人。又举了弗莱德和他的一个不诚实的同事例子，弗莱德巧妙的方法，暗示老板他...

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