Passage One Among all the malignancies, lung cancer is the biggest killer; more than 100,000 Americans die of the disease. Giving up smoking is one of obvious ways to reduce the risk, but another answer may lie in the kitchen. According to a new report, even heavy smokers may be protected from developing lung cancer by eating a daily portion of carrots, spinach or any other vegetable or fruit containing a form of vitamin A called carotene. The finding, published in THE LANCET, is part of a long-range investigation of diet and disease. Since 1957, some American researchers have monitored the dietary habits and medical histories of 2,000 middle-aged men employed by the Western Electric Co. in Chicago. Led by Dr. Richard Shekelle of St. Luke's Medical Center, the researchers recently began to sort out the links between the subjects' dietary patterns and cancer. Other studies of animals and humans have suggested that vitamin A offer some protection against lung cancer. The correlation seemed logical, explains Shekelle, since vitamin A is essential for the growth of the epithelial tissue that lines the airways of the lungs. Vegetables: But the earlier research did not distinguish between the two different forms of the vitamin. "Preformed" vitamin A, known as retinols found mainly in liver and dairy products like milk, cheese, butter and eggs. But vitamin A is also made in the body from carotene, which is abundant in a variety of vegetables and fruits, including carrots, spinach, squash, tomatoes, sweet potatoes and apples. In the study, Shekelle and his colleagues found little correlation between the incidence of lung cancer and the consumption of foods containing preformed vitamin A. But when they examined the data on carotene intake, they discovered a significant relationship. Among the 488 men who had the lowest level of carotene consumption, there were 14 cases of lung cancer; in a group of the same size that ate the most carotene, only two cases developed. The apparent protective effect of carotene held up even for long-time smokers—but to a lesser degree. Further studies will be necessary before the link between lung cancer and carotene can be firmly established. In the meantime, researchers warn against taking large numbers of vitamin A pills, because the tablets contain a form of the chemical that can be extremely toxic in high doses. Instead, they advise a well-balanced diet that includes goods rich in carotene. For a smoker, a half-cup of carrots every day might possibly make the difference between life and death.
1. The word "malignancy" (Line 1, Para. 1) most probably refers to ______.
[解析] 推理题。根据文中第三段的 "Preformed" vitamin A, known as retinol, is found mainly in liver and dairy products like milk, cheese, butter and eggs. 亦即维A醛能在肝制品和奶制品中找到,可以根据这个推断出C(苹果)为正确答案。
3. Carotene is present in all of the following EXCEPT ______.
Passage Two Long-suffering couples take heart. There is a good reason for those endless arguments in the front of the car; men and women use different parts of the brain when they try to find their way around, suggesting that the strategies they use might also be completely different. Matthias Riepe and his colleagues at the University of Ulm in Germany asked 24 healthy volunteers—half of them men, half women—to find their way out of three virtual-reality mazes displayed on video goggles. Meanwhile, the researchers monitored the volunteers' brain activity using a Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (FMRT) scanner. This showed that men and women called on strikingly different brain areas to complete the task. "I didn't expect it be so dramatic," says Riepe. Previous studies have been shown that women rely mainly on landmarks to find their way. Men use these cues too, but they also use geometric cues, such as the angle and shape of a wall or a comer. Such studies also suggest that men navigate their way out of unfamiliar spaces more quickly, as Riepe found in his study, too. Riepe discovered that both men and women used parts of the parietal cortex towards the top of the brain, the right side of the hippocampus and a few other well-established areas to find their way out. Neuroscientists think that the parietal regions help translate what the eyes see into information about where the body is in space, while the hippocampal region helps process how objects are arranged. But other regions seemed to be exclusively male or female. The men engaged the left side of their hippocampus, which the researchers say could help with assessing geometry or remembering whether they have already visited a location. The women, by contrast, recruited their right frontal cortex. Riepe says this may indicate that they were using their "working memory", trying to keep in mind the landmarks they had passed. "It fits very well with the animal studies," says Riepe. He points out that there seem to be similar differences in rats. For example, damage to the frontal lobe will impair a female's sense of direction but not a male's.
1. The studies on the driving issue have evolved ______.
A.from the car to the driver
B.from the reality to the virtual-reality
C.from the physical cues to the parts &the brain
D.from the cues of navigation to the strategies of driving
A B C D
C
[解析] 题意为,对驾驶问题的研究已经从身体发展到大脑的功能区域。这是文章的主旨,故选C。
2. The different parts of the brain men and women use to find their way around according to the passage refer to ______.
A.the left side of the hippocampus and the right frontal cortex
B.the right and left side of their hippocampus respectively
C.the right and left hemisphere of their brains respectively
D.the parietal cortex and the hippocampus as a whole
Passage Three Work has left you frazzled. Your legs ache when you get back from the gym. Don't pop those aspirins just yet. Think hot springs. Cranking up a hot tub and hopping in is a natural remedy that can provide significant relief from physical pain and stress. There are more than three million home spas in the U.S. today. There are numerous reasons spas have made the move from the decks of Hollywood producers to the back yards of middle America. Spas help to reduce the effect stress on your body, assist in muscle recovery after the stress of exercise, and help heal the muscles near arthritic joints. There are three elements to hydrotherapy that, in tandem, provide these healing effects on the body: heat, buoyancy, and motion. When you exercise, your muscles develop thousands microscopic tears which result in painful lactic acid build-up in the muscle tissue. Hydrotherapy's motion and warmth cause blood vessels to dilate, lowering blood pressure and speeding the flow of oxygen, endorphins, and cell-repairing nutrients to injured muscles. Additionally, buoyancy of the water reduces the strain on your knees and joints which allow the surrounding muscles to relax. This can be of crucial help to arthritis sufferers, because when joints are inflamed, the surrounding muscles become tense to protect them. Relaxing in a spa then makes your muscles more limber and reduces the pain. Water's healing potential has long been known. We don't tend to associate intelligence with our bodies, yet as Thomas Edison said, "Great ideas originate in the muscles." Radical psychoanalyst Wilhelm Reich believed that many of us inhibit or deny impulses, feelings, traumas, and stresses by tightening our muscles and creating a kind of body armor." He felt that as you cut off the source of pain, you also cut off the source of pleasure. By loosening body armor, by letting muscles relax, you can return to a feeling of flow and creativity. Few things can relax the body more than a home spa. And a relaxed body leads to a relaxed mind. There is no better place to start relaxing than an hour in your home hot springs.
1. To begin with, what does the author insist we avoid doing?
5. Which of the following can be the best title for the passage?
A.Spas, the Best Relaxation.
B.A Brief History of Spas.
C.Spa Resorts in the USA.
D.Soak Away Stress.
A B C D
A
[解析] 题意为,文章最好的题目是水疗法,是最好的放松方式。符合主旨,故选A。
Passage Four Today this dangerous situation has been largely alleviated. Henry, a 77-year-old pensioner from East London, still lives alone and happily practices golf swings in his back garden safe in the knowledge that his body is able to cope with the extra exertion. What has altered Henry's life is not some wonder drug but a simple change in the way his illness is managed. Every day Henry hooks himself up to monitoring devices whose results are helped him to understand it and overcome its more debilitating effects. "Telehealth has given me confidence in myself because I know my own body now," he says. He adjusts what he does according to what his daily readings tell him about his condition. Henry is just one of a growing number of pioneering patients who are trusting their futures to telehealth. Large trials are under way around the world to evaluate the idea. With elderly populations and the incidence of age-related illnesses growing telechealth promises to give people the independence they need to remain in their own homes. It could also reduce the burden of healthcare costs. The disorder that makes Henry's life so difficult is chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (DOPD), a condition that affects some 800,000 people in England. The airways in his lungs have narrowed, leaving him with severe shortness of breath and blood oxygen levels that can fall dangerously low. With his new equipment, Henry can keep a close eye on how his body is doing. He received for measuring his blood oxygen level and pulse rate, a blood pressure monitor and a set of speaking scales. Each connects wirelessly to a unit collates the readings and sends them to a team of medical specialists, who watch for suspicious changes. If the readings look bad, they call him to discuss appropriate action. Henry too can see the readings on his television, where they are displayed with the help of a special set-top box. Whether a day is good or bad depends largely on Henry's blood oxygen level. Before joining the telehealth program, he could only guess at that. Now he knows if the reading is low, he can take action. When the reading is high, he can go about his business confident that his oxygen level will see him through. "Telehealth is a good thing for me," says Henry. "I know that on the other end of the telephone there's a little angel and if anything goes wrong it shows up on the television and she's on the phone within five minutes."
Passage Five People who live and work in areas with elevated levels of ozone and other airborne pollutants appear to run an increased risk of lung cancer, US researchers report in the December Issue of the journal Environmental Health Perspectives. The researchers, Dr. Beeson, of Texas University and colleagues studied more than 4,000 female and 2,000 male, white, nonsmoking volunteers from 1977 to 1992. At the start of the study, the volunteers filled out questionnaires about their occupations, their exercise patterns, diet and other lifestyle choices, and their family's health history. The questionnaires also asked whether the volunteers had any respiratory symptoms, how many hours they spent outdoors, and where they lived and worked. The researchers updated this information in 1987 and again in 1992. Using air quality monitoring station data, Beeson and colleagues then determined the levels of particle soot, ozone or "smog", sulfur dioxide, and other pollutants that the volunteers were exposed to, given where they lived and worked. Over the course of the 15-year study, 20 of the women and 16 of the men were diagnosed with lung cancer. Analyzing the relationship between exposure to airborne pollutants and lung cancer risk, the researchers found that both men and women regularly exposed to levels of particle that were higher than the National Ambient Air Quality Standard of 50 microgram per meter cubed ran an increased risk of lung cancer. And both men and women exposed to elevated levels of sulfur dioxide ran an increased risk of lung cancer. In addition, men regularly exposed to ozone levels of 80 parts per billion (ppb) ran more than three times the risk of lung cancer as men exposed to lower levels. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) limit on ozone is 120 ppb, Beeson and colleagues report. Women, however, did not appear to run an increased risk of lung cancer if exposed to high levels of smog. "This gender difference may be due to the males spending much more time outdoors than females," they write. "This was especially true for the summer when ozone levels are higher." The difference may also have been due to hormonal differences, they add. Some research findings also suggest that the female sex hormone estrogen may partly offset the consequences of exposure to high ozone levels. "Our findings suggest that the current EPA standard of 120 ppb for ozone may not adequately protect the large portion of the US male population who live or work in communities where the current standard for ozone is frequently exceeded," Beeson and colleagues conclude. "More research with a larger number of incident cases of lung cancer is needed to better understand the observed gender difference in regard to ozone exposure as well as to better separate the independent effects of ozone, airborne particulate matter sulfur dioxide, and other airborne pollutants."
1. Which of the following is not included in the questionnaire?
3. It was found in the research that ______ did not seem to run an increased risk of lung cancer.
A.women exposed to high levels of sulfur dioxide
B.men regularly exposed to high levels of sulfur dioxide
C.women exposed to high levels of smog
D.men regularly exposed to high levels of smog
A B C D
C
[解析] 由第五段第三句“Women, however, did not appear to run an increased risk of lung cancer if exposed to high levels of smog.”可知,选项C正确。
4. It can be inferred from the research mentioned in this passage ______.
A.males are more vulnerable to dangers in life than females
B.female is stronger sex than male
C.male sex hormone may not be able to decrease the effect of exposure to high ozone levels
D.spending much time outdoors in summer is not harmful to females
A B C D
C
[解析] 第五段第四句提到“This gender difference may be due to the males spending much more time outdoors than females.”以及下一句“This was especially true for the summer when ozone levels are higher.”根据该句可知,在夏天,spending much time outdoors,尤其是接触“high levels of ozone”对男性的伤害超过女性。根据该段的最后两句“The difference...due to hormonal differences...the female sex hormone estrogen may partly offset the consequences of exposure to high ozone levels.”可知,雄性激素可能不能抵消接触high ozone levels造成的后果。所以,选项C应为答案。
5. The proper title for this passage should be ______.
Passage Six Confronted with patient facing death, physicians may feel a sense of medical impotence and failure. Years of training and zeal to heal have focused on doing anything and everything to save the patient. Death is treated as the enemy. One might ask, "What use can I be if I cannot fix?" One may be tempted to withdraw. There may be no meaningful closure with a patient other than referral to home care at hospice. Feelings evoked by a patient's dying are also antithetical (对立的) to the original "call" to medicine—the desire to make a difference in people's lives and the alleviation of pain and suffering. Over time these inner directives may have been obscured by the rigors of a pressured practice, not to mention the climate of malpractice litigation (诉讼). This threat necessitates obsessive attention to the details of intervention options, possibly at the cost of considering the needs of the whole person at hand. So the moment when death raises its specter (恐惧) is a crossroads. Herein ties the opportunity for physicians to go beyond their conventional model of relating to patients. This is when the conventional therapeutic tools can be set aside in favor of the most powerful contribution of all; the physician's caring itself. The only requirement is a willingness to extend conscious listening and basic humanity to the dying patient. The simple act of visitation of presence, of taking the trouble to witness the patient's process can be in itself a potent healing affirmation—a sacramental (圣礼的) gesture received by the dying person who may be feeling helpless, diminished and fearful that they have little to offer others. The patient may also fear that he or she has failed. How meaningful it is to be told by my physicians that they are learning from me! I feel honored and joined by my physicians as we participate in these human, vulnerable and mysterious moments at the end of my life. I and many dying persons would agree that beyond pain control, the three elements we most need are feeling cared about, being respected and enjoying a sense of continuity, be it in relationships or in terms of spiritual awareness.
1. Facing a terminally-ill patient, physicians ______.
A.have no right to withdraw
B.must save him or her at any cost
C.can do nothing but accept the failure
D.can be caught in the dilemma of cure or care
A B C D
D
[解析] 题意为,面对病入膏肓的病人,医生陷入治疗还是关心的两难困境中。故选D。
2. During the pressured practice, the feelings evoked by a patient's dying ______.
A.can lead to a legal suit
B.are likely to be set aside
C.tend to be antithetical to the quality of life
D.urge the physician to save him or her by all means