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  3. Word on the street is that gossip is the worst. An Ann Landers advice column once characterized gossip as "the faceless demon th

Word on the street is that gossip is the worst. An Ann Landers advice column once characterized gossip as "the faceless demon th

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问题    Word on the street is that gossip is the worst. An Ann Landers advice column once characterized gossip as "the faceless demon that breaks hearts and ruins careers. " The Talmud describes it as a "three-pronged tongue" that kills three people; the teller, the listener, and the person being gossiped about. And Blaise Pascal observed, not unreasonably, that "if people really knew what others said about them, there would not be four friends left in the world." Convincing as these indictments (控告) seem, however, a significant body of research suggests that gossip may in fact be healthy.
   Despite gossip’s evil reputation, a surprisingly small share of it—as little as 3 to 4 percent—is actually malicious. And even that portion can bring people together. Researchers at the University of Texas found that if two people share negative feelings about a third person, they are likely to feel closer to each other than they would if they both felt positively about him or her.
   Gossip may even make us better people, and it is pretty pervasive. A team of Dutch researchers reported that positive gossip inspired self-improvement efforts, and negative gossip made people prouder of themselves. Moreover, the worse participants felt upon hearing a piece of negative gossip, the more likely they were to say they had learned a lesson from it.
   By far the most positive assessment of gossip, though, comes from the evolutionary psychologist Robin Dunbar. In Dunbar’s account, our primate ancestors bonded through grooming (梳理毛发), their mutual back-scratching ensuring mutual self-defense in the event of attack by predators. But as hominids (原始人类 ) grew more intelligent and more social, their groups became too large to unite by grooming alone. That’s where language—and gossip, broadly defined—stepped in.
   So the next time you’re tempted to gossip about others, fear not—you may actually be promoting cooperation, boosting others’ self-esteem, and performing the essential task of the human family.
What can we learn from the indictments of gossip?
选项 A、Gossip involves three people.
B、Gossip will kill three people.
C、Only three friends remain because of gossip.
D、People will get hurt because of gossip.
答案D
解析 推理判断题。由第二至四句可知，流言被描述为“令人伤心和毁掉职业生涯的千篇一律的恶魔。”流言是一把“三刃剑”，一次可以杀死三个人：传播流言的人、听信流言的人和被人讲流言蜚语的人。“如果人们真的知道别人在其背后说他们的话，那世界上就不会有四个朋友”，即人们会因为流言而受到伤害，故答案为D)。A)“流言牵涉三个人”，由原文可知，《塔木德》称流言为一把“三刃剑”，一次可以杀死三个人，但并非指明流言一定牵涉到三个人，A)与原文意思不符，故排除；B)“流言将杀死三个人”，由原文可知，《塔木德》称其为一把“三刃剑”，一次可以杀死三个人，并非流言真的会杀死三个人，B)与原文意思不符，故排除；C)“因为流言，只剩下三个朋友”，由原文可知，布莱兹·帕斯卡发现，“如果人们真的知道别人在其背后说他们的话，那世界上就不会有四个朋友”，所指并非绝对只有三个朋友，故排除该项。
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大学英语四级

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