Question

There’re five factors which contribute to the spread of fake news: political gain; misreporting; going viral(病毒式传播); financial gain; and “not letting the truth get in the way of a good story".

1. When the Titanic disaster happened, Telegrams stating that all the passengers from the Titanic had been rescued were reported as fact in newspapers, before the full extent of the tragedy came to light.

2. In the early 20th century it took years rather than seconds but the principle was the same. People shared the photographs around, not checking the accuracy of them, either wanting to believe they were real, or just because they were a novelty,

It's long been believed that the motto of Fleet Street was “never let the facts get in the way of a good story", illustrated by a news story earlier in 2017 that Jeremy Corbyn had refused to bow his head to the Queen at the state opening of Parliament. Only later did it become known that protocol(礼节) doesn’t require bowing to the Queen in these situations. 3.

    The final two factors for a story to be fake news often go hand in hand: as a political tool, and a must to make profit. 4. Easier than you'd think. The websites with fake news can easily get astonishing hits, which then attracts advertisements and thus earn the website owners a nice profit .

The good news is that a number of new media organizations are trying to encourage us to think about where news comes from, who puts it out, and whether anyone can gain politically, financially or ideologically by it, before we share it around social media. 5.

A. How does that make money?

B. How do people gain politically?

C. But that didn’t matter, the story was out.

D. Here is a good example of misreporting.

E. That was how a good story came into being.

F. Going viral is another typical characteristic of fake news.

G. Thus we can give it certain respectability and trustworthiness.

Answer

1. D

2. F

3. C

4. A

5. G

【解析】

本文是一篇说明文，传播虚假新闻有五个原因，文章对这五个原因做了举例说明并建议人们在传播信息之前要仔细思考这个消息的来源以及谁能够从中获利等。以此来确定新闻的真实性。

1.横线后一句“When the Titanic disaster happened, Telegrams stating that all the passengers from the Titanic had been rescued were reported as fact in newspapers”告诉我们当泰坦尼克号沉没的时候，新闻报道说所有乘客都获救了。这属于典型的虚假新闻，列举的是错误报道的例子，所以D项“Here is a good example of misreporting”符合语境，故选择D项。

2.横线后一句“In the early 20th century it took years rather than seconds but the principle was the same.”告诉我们在20世纪虚假新闻的传播要好几年，而现在只要及秒钟。虽然时间差别很大，但是这种病毒式传播虚假新闻的原则是一样的，所以F项“Going viral is another typical characteristic of fake news.”符合语境，故选择F项。

3.横线一句中列举事例告诉我们实际上Jeremy Corbyn在国会上并不需要向女王鞠躬，但他拒绝向女王鞠躬的新闻已经传播出去了，至于最终是否是真实的并不重要。所以C项“But that didn’t matter, the story was out.”符合上下文语境，故选择C项。

4.本段最后一句“The websites with fake news can easily get astonishing hits, which then attracts advertisements and thus earn the website owners a nice profit”告诉我们虚假新闻刊登在网站上，引起更多人点击这个新闻，会吸引广告商在这个网站上投放广告，网站的所有者就可以挣钱了。该句解释了A项“How does that make money?”所提出的问题。故选择A项。

5.本段第一句“The good news is that a number of new media organizations are trying to encourage us to think about where news comes from, who puts it out, and whether anyone can gain politically, financially or ideologically by it, before we share it around social media.”告诉我们很多新闻媒体鼓励人们在传播信息之前要仔细思考这个消息的来源以及谁能够从中获利等。这样做能够更好地确定新闻的真实性。G项“Thus we can give it certain respectability and trustworthiness.”符合语境，故选择G项。