Question

Our brains believe information automatically（自動(dòng)地）-even if it's false-because we can learn efficiently this way. "We're learning false information not because we're poor learners or not working hard, " says David Rapp, a psychology and education professor at Northwestern University. "In many cases, it's a useful skill for us to accept what people tell us, because often what people tell us is true."

When we hear new information, those fresh facts don't cover what we knew before. We'll draw on old or new information when the situation comes up. ___________ . Short-term memories are easier for our brains to access than facts we heard longer ago, because they're fresher in our minds-even if they're wrong. Since we have to think back further to remember old information, we will often ignore it in favour of new inaccurate（不準(zhǔn)確的）information. New information is what we're currently thinking about or has been recently presented to us, while the old one isn't as readily available.

We also buy into the facts that seem more reasonable. Often, this means they fit better with what we want to believe, which can explain why people quote different facts in political debates. Both candidates said something that was objectively true or not, but people would go with what they hope to be true.

Things get even trickier when truth and falsehood coexist in the information. For instance, our brains aren't sure whether to believe the descriptions of London in Harry Potter. "Don't look for that train station to Hogwarts, but there might be streets mentioned that are real, " says Dr. Rapp. In fact, our brains can keep track of what's true or false by mentally tagging（標(biāo)記）facts as either true or false, but sorting all that information takes time. In many cases, we are unlikely to think critically to get information, especially when we are reading for pleasure.

However, it's worth putting in the extra effort to have a second thought about the information that seems doubtful. "With the ease that we can look things up on the Internet, " says Dr. Rapp, "there's no reason not to." "Seek out reliable sources, " he adds.

1.The missing sentence in Paragraph 2 might be "___________ ".

A.We always find the information updating fast nowadays

B.Oftentimes, we use the information we heard most recently

C.From time to time, we fail to remember unimportant things

D.We hardly see old information that is different from the truth

2.The underlined phrase "buy into" in Paragraph 3 can be replaced by ___________ .

A.believe in B.learn from C.come up with D.care about

3.Why does the writer mention Harry Potter in Paragraph 4?

A.To prove people are unable to think critically when reading.

B.To show the information we get can be a mix of true and false.

C.To warn readers of the negative influence, of false information.

D.To explain how individual facts are mentally tagged as true or false.

4.What can we learn from the passage?

A.Our brains can do very little with false information.

B.Short-term memories can cover long-term memories.

C.Dr. Rapp calls on people not to depend on the Internet.

D.People need to double-check the information they question.

Answer 1