Question

Decision-thinking is not unlikepoker—it often matters not only what you think, but also what others think youthink and what you think they think you think. The mental process (过程) is similar. Naturally, thiscard game has often been of considerable interest to people who are, by anystandards, good thinkers.

Thegreat mathematician John Von Neumann was one of the founders of game theory. Inparticular, he showed that all games fall into two classes: there are what hecalled games of “perfect information”, games like chess where the players can’thide anything or play tricks: they don’t win by chance, but by means of logicand skills. Then there are games of “imperfect information”, like poker, inwhich it is impossible to know in advance that one course of action is betterthan another.

One mistaken idea about business is that it can be treated as a game of perfectinformation. Quite the reverse.Business, politics, life itself are games which we must normally play with veryimperfect information. Business decisions are often made with many unknown andunknowable factors (因素) which would even puzzle (困惑) best poker players. But few business people find itcomfortable to admit that they are taking a chance, and many still prefer tobelieve that they are playing chess, not poker.

The subject discussed in this text is _______.

1. A.
   the process of reaching decisions
2. B.
   the difference between poker and chess
3. C.
   the secret of making good business plans
4. D.
   the value of information in winning games

Answer 1

A
本文段由3个自然段组成，这3个自然段分别论述了以下问题： ①decision-thinking与poker的相似性。 ②the game theory以及两种不同的games。 ③关于business decision的特点。 本题的4个选项把上面的问题都涉及了，问题在于：作者贯穿全文的基本意思是什么?本段提出关于商务决策的问题，是作为决策的一个方面进行讨论的，所以，它并不是全文讨论的问题。poker与chess的分类虽在第2自然段中进行了讨论，但是，此点与决策问题的逻辑关系应当是这样的：the game theory (the twoclasses-poker and chess)属于decision-thinking与decision-making。由此，我们就可以得出结论：本段的主旨是讨论决策过程的。