The dangers of whitewashing history - Review 6

C2 Proficiency · Open Cloze · Close-up C2 Workbook, National Geographic Learning

For questions 1–8, read the text below and think of the word which best fits each gap. Use only one word in each gap.

Occasionally the Department of Education requests that some course materials be rewritten or replaced because some facts are (1) ___ odds with the image the educational authorities, and to a greater degree, the current government wishes (2) ___ portray. It's unfathomable that such people could think there's (3) ___ harm in rewriting history. Nonetheless, (4) ___ this whitewashing does is give young learners a rosy picture of their history if they read about 'workers' rather than 'slaves', or 'conflicts' rather than 'genocide'. More importantly, the events in the lead-up to these horrors would seem harmless or even justified, and it is (5) ___ which allows such horrors to recur. But unscrupulous officials bent on denying the truth and reinventing the past (6) ___ rather risk sowing the seeds of future cruelty in order to fool citizens into believing that they live in a perfect world. Besides, citizens have a way of finding out the truth anyway and they're not going to have such warm feelings once they realise that their own government misinformed (7) ___ . In any case, officials should stop (8) ___ their backs on their cultural history, no matter what it comprises.

The dangers of whitewashing history

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