第1部分:词汇选项下面每个句子中均有1个词或短语画有底横线,请为每处画线部分确定1个意义最为接近的选项。 第一篇 Nuclear Power and Its Danger
Nuclear power's danger to health, safety, and even life itself can be summed up in one word: radiation.
Nuclear radiation has a certain mystery about it, partly because it cannot be detected by human senses. It can't be seen or heard, or touched, or tasted, even though it may be all around us. There are other things like that. For example, radio waves are all around us but we can't detect them, sense them, without a radio receiver. Similarly, we can't sense radioactivity without a radiation detector. But unlike common radio waves, nuclear radiation is not harmless to human beings and other living things.
At very high levels, radiation can kill an animal or human being outfight by killing masses of cells in vital organs. But even the lowest level of radiation can do serious damage. There is no level of radiation that is completely safe. If the radiation does not hit anything important, the damage may not be significant. This is the case when only a few cells are hit, and if they are killed outright. Your body will replace the dead cells with healthy ones. But if the few cells are only damaged, and if they reproduce themselves, you may be in trouble. They reproduce themselves in a deformed way. They can grow into cancer. Sometimes this does not show up for many years.
This is another reason for some of the mystery about nuclear radiation. Serious damage can be done without the victim being aware at the time that damage has occurred. A person can be irradiated and feel fine, then die of cancer five, ten, or twenty years later as a result. Or a child can be born weak or liable to serious illness as a result of radiation absorbed by its grandparents.
Radiation can hurt us. We must know the truth. 第二篇 Life Connected with Computer
After too long on the Net, even a phone call can be a shock. My boyfriend's Liverpudlian accent suddenly becomes indecipherable after the clarity of his words on screen, a secretary's tone seems more rejecting than I'd imagined it would be. Time itself becomes fluid—hours become minutes, and alternately seconds stretch into days. Weekends, once a highlight of my week, are now just two ordinary days.
For the last three years, since I stopped working as a producer for Charlie Rose, I have done much of my work as a telecommuter. I submit articles and edit them via E-mail and communicate with colleagues on Internet mailing lists. My boyfriend lives in England, so much of our relationship is computer-mediated.
If I desired, I could stay inside for weeks without wanting anything. I can order food, and manage my money, love and work. In fact, at times I have spent as long as three weeks alone at home, going out only to get mail and buy newspapers and groceries. I watched most of the blizzard of 96 on TV.
But after a while, life itself begins to feel unreal. I start to feel as though I've merged with my machines, taking data in, spitting them back out, just another node on the Net. Others online report the same symptoms. We start to strongly dislike the Outside forms of socializing. It's like attending an A.A. meeting in a bar with everyone holding a half-sipped drink, We have become the Net opponents' worst nightmare.
What first seemed like a luxury, crawling from bed to computer, not worrying about hair, clothes and face, has become an avoidance, a lack of discipline. And once you start replacing real human contact with cyber-interaction, coming back out of the cave can be quite difficult.
At times, I turn on the television and just leave it to chatter in the background, something that I'd never done previously. The voices of the programs soothe me, but then I'm jarred by the commercials. I find myself sucked in by soap operas, or compulsively needing to keep up with the latest news and the weather. "Dateline," "Frontline", "Nightline", CNN, New York 1, every possible angle of every story over and over, even when they are of no possible use to me. Work moves from foreground to background. 第三篇 When Fear Takes Control of the Mind
A panic attack is a sudden feeling of terror. Usually it does not last long, but it may feel like forever. The cause can be something as normally uneventful as driving over a bridge or flying in an airplane. And it can happen even if the person has driven over many bridges or flown many times before. A fast heartbeat. Sweaty hands. Difficulty breathing. A light-headed feeling. At first a person may have no idea what is wrong. But these can all be signs of what is known as panic disorder. The first appearance usually is between the ages of 18 and 25. In some cases it develops after a tragedy, like the death of a loved one, or some other difficult situation.
In the United States, the National Institute of Mental Health says more than two million people are affected in any one-year period. The American Psychological Association says panic disorder is two times more likely in women than men. And it can last anywhere from a few months to a lifetime.
Panic attacks can be dangerous—for example, if a person is driving at the time. The Chesapeake Bay Bridge in the state of Maryland is so long and so high over the water, it is famous for searing motorists. There is even a driver assistance program to help people get across.
Some people who suffer a panic attack develop a phobia, a deep fear of ever repeating the activity that brought on the attack.
But experts say panic disorder can be treated. Doctors might suggest anti-anxiety or antidepressant medicines. Talking to a counselor could help a person learn to deal with or avoid a panic attack. There are breathing methods, for example, that might help a person calm down.
Panic disorder is included among what mental health professionals call anxiety disorders. A study published last week reported a link between anxiety disorders and several physical diseases. It says these include thyroid disease, lung and stomach problems, arthritis, migraine headaches and allergic conditions. Researchers at the University of Manitoba in Canada say that in most cases the physical condition follows the anxiety disorder. But, they say, exactly how the two are connected remains unknown.
The report in the Archives of Internal Medicine came from a German health study of more than 4,000 adults.