【推荐1】The study findings about a new blood test have been published this morning in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA Cardiology). The study was conducted smoothly and effectively based on their working together with the Canterbury District Health Board (CDHB), New Zealand, and the Christchurch Heart Institute, which is run by the university of Otago, Christchurch, New Zealand.

Co-lead author, Associate Professor John Pickering of the University of Otago, says, “When a patient comes to an emergency department (ED) with symptoms that suggest a potential heart attack, present laboratory blood-testing procedures can take 1-2 hours to discover the risk level, but with this new test we can get a result in just fifteen minutes, from the bedside, or ‘point-of-care’, freeing up ED and health care staff. The patient can then either be cleared to leave, or quickly progressed to specialist care. The result proves to be true after later observation and other tests.”

Senior author, and Director of Emergency Medicine Research, Dr Martin Than of the CDHB says present point-of-care tests can lack the precision of this new method that is centered around a measurement of cardiac troponin (肌钙蛋白) in the blood. “Our results have extremely exciting potential for not only EDs, but also remote health care providers—such as those in the countryside. Given the great effect heart disease and other related conditions have on not only New Zealand society but also the international community, we have something that could benefit tens of millions of patients globally,” Dr Than says.

The analysis of this observational study, conducted from 2016 to 2017 at Christchurch Hospital’s emergency department, included about 350 patients with symptoms of a heart attack. “So far our testing has shown that close to fifty percent of patients could have the heart attack safely and precisely excluded (排除……的可能性) soon after arrival at the ED. Wider study is required to be in progress and some other study concerned across ten District Health Boards in New Zealand is planned for next year,” Dr Than says.

1. How did the researchers get the findings?

A．By doing effective teamwork.	B．By observing patients with heart disease.
C．By applying the EDs’ advanced technology.	D．By receiving support from other specialists.

2. Which of the following can best describe the new blood test?

A．Convenient and cheap.	B．Quick and reliable.
C．Convenient but expensive.	D．Quick but risky.

3. What problem does the present point-of-care method face?

A．It spends too much to get medical training.	B．It doesn’t have its own health care staff.
C．It can’t check patients’ blood accurately.	D．It needs money to buy medical equipment.

4. What does Dr. Than mean about the new test in the last paragraph?

A．It is being used globally.	B．It can cure heart disease.
C．It’ll make progress next year.	D．It needs further research.

【推荐2】阅读下列短文，从每题所给的四个选项中，选出最佳选项。

The health-care economy is filled with unusual and even unique economic relationships. One of the least understood involves the peculiar roles of producer or “provider” and purchaser or “consumer” in the typical doctor-patient relationship. In most sectors of the economy, it is the seller who attempts to attract a potential buyer with various appealing factors of price, quality, and use, and it is the buyer who makes the decision. Such condition, however, is not common in most of the health-care industry.

In the health-care industry, the doctor-patient relationship is the mirror image of the ordinary relationship between producer and consumer. Once an individual has chosen to see a physician — and even then there may be no real choice — it is the physician who usually makes all significant purchasing decisions: whether the patient should return “next Wednesday”, whether X-rays are needed, whether drugs should be prescribed, etc. It is rare that a patient will challenge such professional decisions or raise in advance questions about price, especially when the disease is regarded as serious.

This is particularly significant in relation to hospital care. The physician must certify the need for hospitalization, determine what procedures will be performed, and announce when the patient may be discharged. The patient may be consulted about some of the decisions, but in general it is the doctor’s judgments that are final. Little wonder then that in the eye of the hospital it is the physician who is the real “consumer”. As a consequence, the medical staff represents the “power center” in hospital policy and decision-making, not the administration.

Although usually there are in this situation four identifiable participants— the physician, the hospital, the patient, and the payer (generally an insurance carrier or government)— the physician makes the essential decisions for all of them. The hospital becomes an extension of the physician; the payer generally meets most of the bills generated by the physician/hospital, and for the most part the patient plays a passive role. We estimate that about 75-80 percent of health-care choices are determined by physicians, not patients. For this reason, the economy directed at patients or the general is relatively ineffective.

1. The author’s primary purpose in writing this passage is to ________.

A．urge hospitals to reclaim their decision-making authority

B．inform potential patients of their health-care rights

C．criticize doctors for exercising too much control over patients

D．analyze some important economic factors in health-care

2. It can be inferred that doctors are able to determine hospital policies because ________.

A．most of patient’s bills are paid by his health insurance

B．it is doctors who generate income for the hospital

C．some patients might refuse to take their physician’s advice

D．a doctor is ultimately responsible for a patient’s health

3. According to the author, when a doctor tells a patient to “return next Wednesday”, the doctor is in fact ________.

A．advising the patient to seek a second opinion

B．warning the patient that a hospital stay might be necessary

C．instructing the patient to buy more medical services

D．admitting that the first visit was ineffective

4. The author is most probably leading up to ________.

A．a proposal to control medical costs

B．a study of lawsuits against doctors for malpractice

C．an analysis of the cause of inflation (通货膨胀) in the US

D．a discussion of a new medical treatment

【推荐2】“After 30 years of reading cardiograms (心电图), I can never tell whether it’s from a man or woman, or the age of the person,” said Eric Topol, a cardiologist from Scripps Research in La Jolla, California. “A machine can detect if a person has anaemia (贫血) or other difficult diagnoses (诊断).”

Topol is excited not only about how machines are already better than experts at spotting problems, but how they can discover patterns that experts wouldn’t even notice. “In Japan, doctors are using machine vision to pick up polyps (息肉) in real time, and detecting whether or not they could be cancerous and whether they should have a biopsy,” he said. “Machines will not replace physicians—but physicians making use of AI will soon replace those not using it.”

Still, these are early days for the application of AI in healthcare. Pearse Keane, a consultant doctor at Moorrelds Eye Hospital, has been leading a collaboration between Moor fields and Google’s Deep Mind Health. In 2018, he famously published a proof-of-concept paper in Nature showing the erst successful AI diagnosis for eye disease. “The algorithm that we’ve developed isn’t in clinical use at the minute, so we’re trying to implement this now,” Keane said.

Keane mentioned the INSIGHT study, which is looking into eye disease and its link to other conditions such as diabetes (糖尿病). “We are using the eye as a window to the rest of the body. With deep learning, we can now look at a retinal (视网膜）photograph and say: ‘This is a woman, she’s 58 years old, she’s not a smoker or a diabetic, her BMI is around 25, and her blood pressure is around 150 over 85’. Now, to me, that’s staggering.” Keane said.

The INSIGHT study is analysing more than three million OCT scans from around 300,000 patients. “We now know, for every person having had a retinal scan here, who’s gone on to develop a heart attack or diabetes,” he said. “The reason why we’re excited is that we think that if we can get the appropriate data sets and learn them deeply, we can find much more in the back of the eye about the health of the rest of the body.”

“The application of AI for healthcare and medicine is about precision and accuracy, but that’s not all,” said Topol. The most important aspect is how AI can promote a stronger human connection between doctor and patient. “We see patients in single digit numbers of minutes. And that’s not enough, you need the gift of time, which AI can give back,” he said. “Next year this will be the standard,” he believes. “Rather than doctors being data clerks, they will be making eye contact with patients. There’s no algorithm for empathy. That’s a human characteristic that we have to develop and get back in the way it used to be.”

1. According to Topol, machines in healthcare ______.

A．can pick up polyps

B．will replace doctors

C．are already better than experts

D．can discover if a patient has diseases

2. In paragraph 4, Keane mentioned a retinal photograph of a patient mainly to ______.

A．evaluate the effects of AI in healthcare

B．introduce a patient’s personal information

C．explain how deep learning detects diseases

D．show the present outcome of AI’s application

3. What can we learn from the last two paragraphs?

A．AI has been the standard of some advanced hospitals.

B．AI can improve the relationship between doctors and patients.

C．With deep learning, the researchers can find the secrets of the eye.

D．Doctors will spend more time on face-to-face communication with patients.

4. What does this passage mainly talk about?

A．The AI’s application on diagnosis.

B．Successful AI diagnosis for eye disease.

C．The great clinical progress in deep learning.

D．The impact of AI on promoting human connection.

【推荐3】A new study showed evidence of how coal burning which was caused by a volcanic eruption resulted in climate change in Siberia. It discovered the first direct evidence of how extensive burning of coal in Siberia caused the Permian-Triassic（二叠纪至三叠纪）Mass Extinction Event. Their study was published recently in Geology. The research team looked at the volcaniclastic rocks found in the Siberian Traps. These eruptions lasted for about two million years more. The mass extinction almost extinguished life on our planet around 252 million years in the past.

Researchers calculated the temperature of marine waters at the time extinctions were at their peak, and results showed that the planet was in an extremely high temperature level, with ocean and sea temperatures around the equator（赤道）over 104° F. Ecosystems and plant and animal species needed millions of years to establish a new balance and recover populations.

One assuming cause of the event involves massive coal burning, which led to extreme global warming and extinguished most life forms. The team set out to look for evidence of this theory and began to study the region of the Siberian Traps, where magma and lava （岩浆和熔岩）are known to have burned coal and wood.

In the Angara River, the team found high cliffs of volcaniclastic rocks that line the river for many hundreds of miles. They studied the structures for six years, travelling far and wide to collect rocks. More than a thousand pounds of rock samples were collected and shared with a scientific team.

Upon analysis, they found strange parts that seemed to be burnt wood and coal.

Co-author Steve Grasby from the Geological Survey of Canada had previously found similar tiny burnt coal material on an arctic island in Canada, which also dated from the end of the Permian Period and were believed to have floated into the area from Siberia.

Similar events also occur today, with human burning of coal and other fossil energies. The team leader Elkins — Tanton says this is an extra incentive （动 因）for us to act now. Indeed? taking action may prevent or at least slow another mass extinction event.

1. What does the underlined word "extinguished” in the first paragraph mean?

A．Destroyed.	B．Constructed.
C．Formed,	D．Strengthened.

2. What was the major cause for the life to die out on the earth?

A．Parts from the volcanic eruption.

B．Lack of food after the volcanic eruption.

C．High temperatures caused by the volcano.

D．Magma and lava of the volcanic eruption.

3. What does Elkins — Tanton expect us to do?

A．To avoid burning the fossil fuels.

B．To try to prevent volcanoes erupting.

C．To take measures to protect wild animals.

D．To learn how to stay alive in disasters.

4. What is this text mainly about?

A．How to protect our earth more effectively.

B．The mass extinction in history in Siberia,

C．The high temperatures around the world.

D．A study of coal burning in history in Siberia.

【推荐2】My favorite novel is Albert Camus's The Plague(鼠疫). It was published in 1947, after Word WarⅡ.

On the surface, it's a story about an Algerian coastal town threatened by a mysterious plague. But the symbolic idea works on the concrete presentation of a metaphysical(形而上学的) problem, which is the cruel fact of suffering. Like the plague, it's just a thing that happens in the world whether we want it to or not. Camus's novel asks if we can think of suffering not as an individual burden but as a shared experience—and maybe turn it into something positive.

The key is to recognize the universality of suffering. A plague is an extraordinary event and the horror it results in is extraordinary, too. But suffering is anything but extraordinary. Every day you leave the house, something terrible could happen. The same is true for all. All of us are subject to forces over which we have no control.

A pandemic(大流行病) forces us to think about our responsibilities to the people around us. The hero of The Plague is a committed doctor named Rieux. From the very beginning, Rieux devotes himself to resisting the plague that united its victims. Each character in the story is defined(刻画) by what they do when the plague comes. No one escapes it, but those who reduce the suffering of others are the most fulfilled. The only villains are those who cannot see beyond themselves. The plague, for these people, is either an excuse to flee or an opportunity to make profits. Because they can't see that their condition is shared, a spirit of unity is completely foreign to them. And that blindness makes community impossible.

At the very end of The Plague, Camus stated his philosophy that the struggle against suffering is never over for good. The plague will return, and so will everything else that upsets humans. But the point of the book is that a shared struggle is what makes community possible in the first place.

A pandemic, terrible though it is, highlights our mutual interdependence in a way that only tragedy can. The beauty of The Plague is that it asks the reader to map the lessons of the pandemic onto everyday life. The principles that drive the hero, Rieux, are the same principles that make every society worthwhile—understanding, love and unity.

If we learn these lessons, in a moment of crisis, we'll all be better off on the other side of it.

1. What is the symbolic idea of The Plague?

A．An individual burden.	B．A positive experience.
C．A universal suffering.	D．An extraordinary event.

2. What does the underlined word mean?

A．The blind.	B．Businessmen.
C．Foreign victims.	D．Wrongdoers.

3. According to the author, what can we learn from The Plague?

A．We should think of unity more than individual calculation.

B．The pandemic cannot be defeated as it will make a comeback.

C．Understanding, love and unity rid the society of struggle.

D．We'll be better off in a moment of crisis if listening to a doctor.

4. What is the purpose of this text?

A．To introduce a book.

B．To solve a social problem.

C．To remember a writer.

D．To express an opinion.