苏州中学2014高考英语阅读理解课外自练题(4)及答案
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How Many Lies Do the Children Tell You?
Mothers who feel their children don' t appreciate them can add another grievance to the list: half the time, their children are lying to them. A study designed to expose the truth about lying shows that undergraduates lie to their mothers in 46% of their conversations. Still, mums should feel better than total strangers, who are told lies an astonishing 77 % of the time.
Bella Depaulo and a team of psychologists from the University of Virginia, Charlottesville, asked 77 undergraduates to keep a record of all their conversations for a week, and write down whether they lied at any time. DePaulo named lying broadly, as "when you intentionally try to mislead someone", so she would catch the smallest of lies.
The students told an average of two lies a day. They said they had been studying when they had been out drinking. One told his parents that a textbook cost $50 rather than $20 so that they would send him extra money. Female students constantly told their plain-looking roommates that