摘要: The witness that she would tell the truth.

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A person named Bernard Jackson today is a free man, but he has many bitter memories. He spent five years in prison after a jury (陪审团)wrongly convicted (判处…有罪) him of raping two women. At Jackson’s trial, although two witnesses testified that Jackson was with them in another location at the time of the crime, he was convicted  anyway. Why? The jury believed the testimony(证词)of the two victims, who positively identified Jackson as the man who had attacked them. The court eventually freed Jackson after the police found the real criminal.
Many factors influence the accuracy of eyewitness testimony. For instance, witnesses sometimes see photographs of several suspects before they try to identify the person they saw in a group of people. They can become confused by seeing many photographs of similar faces. The number of people in the group, and whether it is a person or a photograph, may also affect a witness’s decision. People sometimes have difficulty identifying people of other races. The questions the police ask witnesses also have an effect on them.
Many people believe that police officers are more reliable than ordinary people. Psychologists decided to test this idea, and they discovered that it is not true. Two psychologists showed a film of crimes to both police officers and civilians. The psychologists found no difference between the police and the civilians in correctly remembering the details of the crimes.
Despite all the possibilities for inaccuracy, courts cannot omit eyewitness testimony from a trial. American courts depend almost completely on eyewitness testimony to resolve(决定)court cases. Sometimes it is the only evidence to a crime, such as rape. Furthermore, eyewitness testimony is often correct. Although people do sometimes make mistakes, and convict innocent people, more importantly, eyewitness testimony has rightly convicted a larger number of guilty people.
American courts depend on the ability of the twelve jurors, and not the judges, to determine the accuracy of the witness’s testimony. It is their responsibility to decide if a certain witness could actually see, hear and remember what happened.
【小题1】Bernard Jackson was found guilty and sentenced 5 years’ prison because________.

A.the victims insisted that he was the attacker
B.he admitted the crime of raping two women
C.the police discovered evidence leading to his guilt
D.the eyewitness proved the victims’ testimony
【小题2】 The following statements may be the reasons for why sometimes the eyewitness’ testimony is not accurate EXCEPT ________.
A.the eyewitness is confused by the police’s questions
B.the eyewitness is shown photos of many similar faces
C.the eyewitness lacks the professional help from police
D.the eyewitness can’t identify people of other races clearly.
【小题3】An inaccurate eyewitness testimony may lead to________.
A.the misunderstanding of the case
B.the disbelief in the court
C.the disrespect for the eyewitness
D.the conviction of an innocent person
【小题4】Eyewitness testimony is important because ___________.
A.it can be relied on to detect criminals in all cases.
B.it is sometimes the only way to resolve court cases.
C.it is sometimes the only clue for police investigation.
D.it is more reliable than physical evidences to a crime.
【小题5】 According to the text, we can infer that ________.
A.eyewitness testimony is valuable, though sometimes incorrect.
B.police identification is more reliable than that of the ordinary people
C.crime victims often fail to give positive identification of the suspects
D.the jury relies on the judge than the eyewitness for a decision

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Some years ago, a Miami woman walking through an office building noticed two men standing together.Several minutes after her leaving, the men murdered a person working in the building.The police determined that the woman was the only witness and could possibly describe them.However, her memory of the men proved disappointingly unclear.Several days later, psychologist Ronald Fisher was brought in to obtain a more complete account from the woman.His interview produced a breakthrough—the woman reported a clear picture of one of the suspects.The important information enabled the police to arrest the suspect and close the case.
The police asked Fisher for help because of his rich knowledge in cognitive (认知) interview, a kind of memory-rebuilding process.Memory researchers have found that people trying to remember a past event often only recall part of the relevant information.Human memory is selective and it is often distorted by stress.But a person's accurate recall of an event or understanding of a question can be improved using specific interviewing techniques.The "cognitive interview" was developed in the late 1990s.It encourages the witness to take an active role in recalling information rather than giving answers only to someone else's questions.The witness first describes what happened in his or her own words, with no interviewer interruptions.The interviewer then goes further with specific techniques, such as having the witness tell the details of what happened from different perspectives(角度).
The cognitive interview focuses on guiding witnesses through four general recalling techniques: thinking about physical surroundings and personal feelings that existed at the time of past events; reporting everything that comes to mind about those events, no matter how broken it is retelling events in a variety of time orders, such as from beginning to end, end to beginning, forward or backward; and adopting different perspectives while recalling events.
Experiments with police detectives trained in this demanding interview method find that they obtain nearly 50% more information from witnesses than before training, while error rates remain about the same.It is proved that cognitive interviews are quite important tools in improving the accuracy and completeness of witness testimony (证词).
【小题1】
The purpose of the passage is to _____.

A.give an account of a murder case
B.introduce an idea of cognitive interview
C.prove Fisher was an expert in cognitive interview
D.help a witness to recall information in a cognitive interview
【小题2】
What is required to recall in a cognitive interview for a witness?
A.The exact time at which a murder took place.
B.The information about the event in the time order.
C.The important things that come to his or her mind.
D.The surroundings and feelings at the time of the event.
【小题3】
The key point in a cognitive interview is that
A.the witness is encouraged to take part in recalling information
B.the interviewer should interrupt the witness from time to time
C.the interview should take place outside the police station
D.the witness should recall details at the scene of the event
【小题4】
The underlined word "distorted" in the passage probably means " ____
A.arranged B.balancedC.changedD.examined

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