【推荐1】After the war in 1743, about 1,500 British soldiers, uninjured but deathly ill, were sent to the army’s hospital. Several men lay in a bed or were put on the floor because of the limited space. Most of the sick had dysentery (痢疾), and everything was covered with human waste, blood and sweat. Dysentery soon gave way to fever. Hundreds died.

John Pringle, a doctor, observed the dying in horror. Then he thought of a way to fight illness. The idea he developed for preventing illness became one of the earliest expressions of the Filth Theory. It held, in brief, that filthy conditions cause diseases and that clean environment helps prevent them.

Born in 1707, Pringle was the youngest son of a Scottish family. He had earned the respect of others by lecturing at the University of Edinburgh. When the war broke out, he was chosen as a doctor in the British army. He soon proved his worth. Pringle found the British army lost a quarter of its strength to sickness alone during the war in 1743. Hospitals became the injured soldiers’ other great enemy.

Then Pringle set out to change that and he worked hard to turn his ideas into orders. He told others to avoid putting the injured soldiers in wet areas and prepare proper toilets for them. Besides, patient space was to be clean and at least 36 square feet for each man. Bed sheets should be changed frequently. Soon, the death rate at the hospital fell by more than half, from 21.4 percent in 1743 to 9.8 percent over the next two years.

Several years later, Pringle published his book Observations on the Diseases of the Army. Being translated into many languages, it reached France, Germany, and Italy. Finally, Pringle’s discovery saved many lives.

1. What does the first paragraph mainly tell us?

A．The cost of winning war.

B．Why the wounded soldiers had dysentery.

C．The bad treatment conditions for the sick soldiers.

D．How to prevent a common disease from spreading.

2. What does the underlined word “filthy” in Paragraph 2 mean?

A．Dirty.

B．Warm.

C．Tiring.

D．Stressful.

3. What does Paragraph 3 suggest?

A．Pringle became famous for the Filth Theory.

B．British soldiers suffered a lot from diseases.

C．Pringle was often praised by British soldiers.

D．Some injured soldiers refused to go to hospital.

4. How did Pringle put his ideas into practice?

A．By hiring responsible medical workers.

B．By reporting the rise in the death rate quickly.

C．By carrying out experiments to find effective medicines.

D．By giving orders to improve the medical environment for soldiers.

【推荐2】If you’ve ever taken a handwritten prescription(处方) from a doctor, it seems that you can never make sense of the letters. Bad handwriting almost seems like a requirement for graduating medical school.

However, it’s not like only people with bad handwriting are attracted to the medical field. Ruth Brocato, MD, primary care doctor with Mercy Medical Center says she went from winning a handwriting award in grade school to having totally unreadable handwriting now. So why?

For one thing, doctors have to write more than just about any other job. Long days plus tons of writing equals a very tired hand. Most doctors’ handwriting gets worse over the course of the day as those small hand muscles get overworked, says Asher Goldstein, MD, pain management doctor with Genesis Pain Centers. If doctors could spend an hour with every patient, they might be able to slow down and give their hands a rest. But the fact is, most physicians are rushing around to the next patient. With so many patients to see in a limited time, doctors are more concerned with getting the information down than perfecting their handwriting.

The jargon (术语) that doctors deal with also lends itself to bad handwriting. For instance, QD is shorthand for a Latin phrase meaning “one a day” and TID means “three times a day.” Your pharmacist would know exactly what your doctor meant, but you’d probably just write it off as chicken scratch.

Now, doctors are moving toward electronic medical records to cut down on errors. No studies have looked into whether the yearly death rate from wrong prescriptions has gone down, but doctors agree there’s less chance for errors.

Of course, typing everything isn’t perfect either. There’s still the possibility of entering, say, 30 instead of 300. While we’re all for electronic medical records, we’ll write by hand whenever we can. Now, learn about these secrets hospitals don’t want to tell you—but every patient should know.

1. How many reasons are mentioned in the passage to explain why doctors are likely to have bad handwriting?

A．One.	B．Two.
C．Three.	D．Four

2. Which of the following statements is true?

A．Only people with bad handwriting are attracted to the medical field.

B．Most doctors’ handwriting gets better over the course of the day.

C．QD is shorthand for a Latin phrase meaning “three times as day”.

D．There is less chance for errors by using electronic medical records.

3. What’s the author’s attitude towards handwritten prescriptions?

A．Supportive.	B．Disapproving.
C．Indifferent.	D．Concerned.

4. What’s the best title for the passage?

A．No time left for doctors to write well.

B．Secrets that hospitals don’t want to tell you.

C．Reasons why most doctors have bad handwriting.

D．Errors reduced by using electronic medical records.

【推荐3】In the winter of 1910, Dr. Wu Lien-teh stepped off a train in the northern Chinese city of Harbin. He was there to solve a medical mystery, at great personal risk. Over the past few months, an unknown disease had swept along the railways of northeast China, killing 99.9%of its victims. The Qing Imperial court had sent the Cambridge-educated Dr. Wu north to stop the epidemic (流行病).

When Dr Wu arrived in Harbin on Christmas Eve, 1910, he carried little in the way of medical instruments and had only one assistant. One of Wu’s first acts upon arrival was to set up special quarantine (隔离) units and to order lockdowns to stop infected persons from traveling and spreading the disease. He had teams check households for possible cases, and even managed to convince authorities to completely close the railways in the early weeks of 1911. Of particular concern was the upcoming Chinese New Year holiday, which had become a great annual migration of people traveling across the country to see their families.

Thanks to Dr. Wu’s efforts, the number of victims began to die down, and by March 1, 1911, the epidemic was fully contained. The pneumonic plague outbreak of 1910-1911 lasted nearly four months, affected five provinces and six major cities, and accounted for over 60,000 deaths. It is clear that without the brave and decisive actions taken by Dr. Wu, it could have been much worse. Had the epidemic gone unchecked, allowing holiday rail passengers to spread the disease to the rest of China could have meant a catastrophic loss of life and possibly a global health crisis.

In April 1911, Dr. Wu chaired an International Plague Conference in Shenyang, attended by scientists from 11 counties including the United States, Great Britain, Russia, Japan and France. They praised Dr. Wu for his handling of the 1910-1911 outbreak. For a time, Dr. Wu was the world’s most famous plague fighter, a title be defended in a malaria epidemic in China in 1919, and a return of plague in 1921.

1. What was Dr Wu’s mission in 1910?

A．To take personal risk.	B．To provide medical education.
C．To end an epidemic.	D．To investigate the number of victims.

2. Which of Dr Wu’s acts stopped the disease from spreading nationwide?

A．Setting up special organizations.	B．Convincing authorities to close railways.
C．Carrying with him medical instruments.	D．Checking households for possible cases.

3. What can we infer from the third paragraph?

A．The disease worsened after Mach 1,1911.

B．The world was saved from a major epidemic in 1911.

C．60,000 people would have died without Dr. Wu’s efforts.

D．A global health crisis followed the 1910-1911 outbreak.

4. What can we know about Dr. Wu from the last paragraph?

A．He was infected with malaria in 1919.

B．He travelled worldwide hosting conferences.

C．He claimed epidemic would never happen again.

D．He continued to fight epidemics in China after 1911.

【推荐1】Sophie became friends with the gray squirrels during her first week at Penn State, after spotting them running around and wondering what they would look like with tiny hats on their heads. Today everyone at the university knows her as the “Squirrel Girl”

Sophie tried bringing them food, and gradually they began to trust her. She managed to put a hat on a squirrel and take a picture. Thinking that her colleagues could do with something to lift their spirits, she started posting similar photos on Facebook. The response was greatly positive, and before long Sophie and her squirrels became an Internet sensation (轰动).

Growing up in a neighborhood outside of State College, Sophie was always fond of birds and animals around her home, but she didn’t interact with people very much. She was later diagnosed (诊断) with Aspergers syndrome (阿斯伯格综合征), but the squirrels changed that. “The squirrels help me break the ice, because I’ll be sitting here patting a squirrel and other people will come over and well just start like feeding the squirrels together and chatting about them,” she said, “I am a lot more outgoing.”

And in case you’ re wondering how Sophie is able to get the squirrels to do what she wants for her photos, it has a lot to do with food. For example, whenever she wants them to hold or play with something, she puts peanut butter on the prop (道具), and they’ll grab it. In the beginning, she would throw peanuts up the trees on campus and invite the squirrels to come down and get them, but they hesitated to approach her. She had the patience to earn their trust, though.

This year, Sophie is graduating with a degree in English and wildlife sciences. She wants to be a science writer and educate people on how to preserve the environment. As for her furry friends, Sophie plans to stay in the area and visit them as often as she can.

1. What can we infer from the passage?

A．Sophie was fonder of squirrels than any other animals.

B．Sophie is known as the “Squirrel Girl” in the community.

C．Sophie and squirrels received great attention on the Internet.

D．Sophie wishes to educate people on how to protect the animals.

2. What can we learn about Sophie according to paragraph 3?

A．She got lots of friends due to squirrels.

B．She lived in the far countryside when young.

C．She used to be a popular girl in her childhood.

D．She was more outgoing by making friends with squirrels.

3. How did Sophie manage to take photos of squirrels wearing hats?

A．By dressing like squirrels.	B．By putting them in cages.
C．By playing music to them.	D．By attracting them with food.

4. What do you think of Sophie?

A．Tolerant and strong.	B．Patient and caring.
C．Sociable and healthy.	D．Traditional and hardworking.

【推荐2】I was in the seventh grade, and we had moved to New Jersey in November. By then, everyone already had had their own friends, and no one wanted to talk to a new girl. To make things worse, they put me in “Section L”. I found out later that everyone called Section L “Loserville”. It was sort of an open secret that it was the section for troublemakers and not-so-smart kids. When I found out, I wanted to scream. I had always been a good student and had amazing friends, and now everyone thought I was a loser!

I did text my friends in Illinois almost every night, especially my best friend, Ana. At first my friends wanted to hear all about it. But then some stopped texting back once I said something about how miserable I was. One night when I was texting with Ana, I complained about another friend who had just done that.

Ana’s texts came really fast for the next few minutes and they surprised me. She said that she was tired of hearing about how bad everything was in New Jersey, too. She said she did not want to hurt my feelings but that I needed to stop feeling so sorry for myself all the time, I had to try to make things better.

The next day, I thought a lot about what Ana had said. She was right!

I wish I could say that everything changed overnight after that, but it didn’t. I was still stuck in “Loserville”, and some people were still mean to me, even though I tried to just stay out of their way.

But what did change was me—I stopped feeling so sorry for myself and did something about making friends. I signed up to make sets for the school play. I met a lot of new people there, and suddenly I had friends to say hi to in the halls!

I still miss Illinois sometimes, but life in New Jersey isn’t so hard anymore. Even though I couldn’t change my situation, I could change my attitude—and that made all the difference.

1. “Loserville” is a section for ________.

A．failures	B．good students
C．class secrets	D．newcomers

2. The writer complained all the time in the new environment because ________.

A．Ana didn’t text back to her	B．her friends hurt her feelings
C．she was unfairly treated	D．she was a good student

3. What made a difference in changing the situation?

A．She went back to Illinois.

B．She ended friendship with Ana.

C．She fought back with her classmates.

D．She began to make friends with others.

4. The best title for the passage can be ________.

A．Lasting Friendship	B．An Incidence at School
C．Say Goodbye to “Loserville”	D．Unhappiness in “Loserville”

【推荐3】I would like to tell you a story about my uncle Theo. He is my oldest uncle, a tall, thin, grey-haired man whose thoughts are always on learning and nothing else. He is quiet, gentle and absent-minded and with about as much sense as a child where money is concerned. Well, he applied a post in Camford University. It was a very good post and there were hundreds of candidates who applied for it, and about fifteen, including Theo, were asked to be interviewed.
Camford is a very small town; there is only one hotel in it, and it was so full that they had to put many of the candidates two in a room. Theo was one of these, and the man who shared the room with him was a self-confident fellow called Adams, about twenty years younger than Theo, with a loud voice, and a laugh that you could hear all over the hotel. But he was a clever fellow all the same and had a good post in Iscaiot College, Narkover. Well, the Dean, who was the head of the department of the University, and the committee interviewed all the candidates; and as a result of this interview, the number of the candidates was reduced to two, Uncle Theo and Adams. The committee couldn’t decide which of the two to take, so they decided to make their final choice after each of the candidates had given a public lecture in the college lecture-hall. The subject they had to speak on was “The Civilization of the Ancient Summerians”; and the lecture had to be given in three days’ time.
Well, for these three days Uncle Theo never left his room. He worked day and night at that lecture, writing it out and memorizing it, almost without eating or sleeping. Adams didn’t seem to do any preparation at all. You could hear his voice and his laughter where he had a crowd of people around him. He came to his room late at night, asked Uncle Theo how he was getting on with his lecture, and then told him how he had spent the evening playing bridge, or at the music hall. He ate like a horse and slept like a log; and Uncle Theo sat up working at his lecture.
The day of the lecture arrived. They all went into the lecture hall and Theo and Adams took their seats on the platform. And then, Theo discovered, to his horror,   that typewritten copy of his speech had disappeared! The Dean said they would call on the candidates on the alphabetical order, Adams first; and the despair in his heart, Theo watched Adams calmly take the stolen speech out of pocket and read it to the professors who were gathered to hear it. And how well he read it! Even Uncle Theo had to admit he couldn’t have read it nearly so eloquently himself, and when Adams finished there was a great burst of applause. Adams bowed and smiled, and sat down.
Now, it was Theo’s turn. But what could he do? He had put everything he knew into the lecture. His mind was too much upset to put the same thoughts in another way. With a burning face he could only repeat, word for word, in a low, dull voice, the lecture that Adams had spoken so eloquently. There was hardly any applause when he sat down.
The Dean and the committee went out to decide who the successful candidate was, but everyone was sure what their decision would be. Adams leaned across to Theo and patted him on the back and said, smilingly, “Hard luck, old fellow, but after all, only one of us could win”
Then the Dean and the committee came back, “Gentlemen”, the Dean said, “the candidate we have chosen is Mr. Hobdell.” Uncle Theo had won! The audience were completely taken by surprise, and the Dean continued, “ I think I ought to tell you how we arrived at the decision. We were all filled with admiration at the learning and eloquence of Mr. Adams. I was greatly impressed. But, you will remember, Mr. Adams read his lecture to us. When Mr. Hobdell’s turn came, he repeated that speech, word by word from memory, though, of course, he couldn’t have seen a line of it before. Now a fine memory is absolutely necessary for this post; and what a memory Mr. Hobdell must have! This is why we decided that Mr. Hobdell was exactly the man we wanted! ”
As they walked out of the room, the Dean came up to Uncle Theo, who was so confused but so happy that he hardly knew whether he was standing on his head or heels; and as he shook Theo’s hand he said, “Congratulations, Mr. Hobdell! But, my fellow, when you are on our staff, you must be more careful and not leave valuable papers lying about!”
1. Which of the followings best describes Uncle Theo?

A．Good-mannered

B．Modest

C．Childish

D．Bookish

2. What do we know about the post at Camford University?

A．The applicants had to sit for an examination.

B．There was much competition for the post.

C．The post requires a lot of teaching experience.

D．The post offered quite high salary.

3. Adams did not bother to do any preparation because______.

A．he was quite familiar with the subject.

B．he knew the committee members well.

C．he had a well-thought-out plan.

D．he had full confidence in himself.

4. When Uncle Theo’s turn came, _______.

A．he felt so angry that he couldn’t see a word.

B．he felt so upset that he could not remember anything.

C．he had to put the same thoughts in another way.

D．he had to repeat the speech, word by word from memory.

5. When the committee went out to make a decision, Adams _______.

A．could not help feeling worried.

B．could hardly wait to show his joy.

C．felt sorry for Theo and tried to cheer him up.

D．felt ashamed and tried to chat with Theo.

6. Uncle Theo became successful because _______.

A．he had a better memory than Adams.

B．he was more experienced than Adams.

C．the committee knew he was exactly the man they wanted.

D．the committee knew Adams had copied Theo’s speech.