1 . When colds and flu hit, many people automatically turn to over-the-counter (OTC) medicines to push through and treat their symptoms. Although these medicines are easily accessible and widely used, it might come as a surprise to many people to learn that they are not risk-free. A study estimated that every year, 26,735 people went to the emergency room for adverse (不利的) events related to OTC cold and cough medicines.
When two or more drugs are used together, their interactions can sometimes produce unexpected harmful effects. Physicians are typically knowledgeable about potential drug interactions, so it is very important for patients to ask their healthcare providers which OTC medicines are safe for them to use.
It is important to read the package ingredients of OTC medicines closely to avoid duplication of doses (剂量重复). Cold medicines are typically made up of multiple ingredients. A person who takes a single-ingredient medicine paired with one of these multi-ingredient medicines can receive an unsafe dose of that ingredient.
While everyone could potentially experience adverse effects from cold and flu medicines, some groups — including older adults, children and pregnant women — may be at greater risk. Older people who are using prescribed drugs to treat multiple health conditions may have a higher risk of drug interactions because of the higher number of medicines being used at the same time to treat different conditions. The aging body is not as expert at absorbing, distributing and clearing medicines as younger bodies are. This can put older adults at higher risk for an overdose and drug-to-drug interactions with some medicines.
The Food and Drug Administration and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention do not recommend giving cold medicines to children under age 4. Because of a variety of factors, young children have a higher risk of an accidental overdose and adverse events that could lead to death.
1. What does the author advise patients to do in Paragraph 2?| A．To ask for suggestions from doctors. | B．To buy medicines from hospitals. |
| C．To read the package ingredients of drugs. | D．To take drugs as early as possible. |
| A．To provide a medical choice for people who catch a cold. |
| B．To show cold medicines are more likely to cause bad effects. |
| C．To explain OTC medicines often have more than one ingredient. |
| D．To stress the importance of learning about medicines’ ingredients. |
| A．They can’t cope with aging positively. | B．Their body can’t handle medicines easily. |
| C．They are more easily affected by diseases. | D．Their desire for health makes them unwise. |
| A．Say No to OTC Drugs | B．Tips on Taking OTC Drugs |
| C．OTC Medicines May Not Be Safe | D．How to Deal with an OTC Drug Overdose |
2 . Personalized medicine changes conventional medicine which typically offers blanket recommendations and offers treatments designed to help more people than they bam but that might not work for you. The approach recognizes that we each possess unique characteristics, and they have an out size impact on our health.
Around the world, researchers are creating precision tools unimaginable just a decade ago: superfast DNA sequencing(排序); tissue engineering, cell reprogramming, gene editing, and more. The science and technology soon will make it possible to predict your risk of cancer, heart disease, and countless other illnesses years before you get sick. The work also offers prospects for changing genes in removing some diseases.
Last spring, researchers at the National Cancer Institute reported the dramatic recovery of a woman with breast cancer, Judy Perkins. The team, led by Steven Rosenberg, an immune(免疫的) treatment pioneer, had sequenced her cancer cells’ DNA to analyze the sudden change. The team also removed a sampling of immune cells and tested them to see which ones recognized her cancer cells' genetic faults. The scientists reproduced the winning immune cells by the billions and put them into Perkins to attack her cancer cells. More than two y cars later. Perkins, a retired engineer from Florida, shows no signs of cancer.
Thirty years ago, scientists thought that it would be impossible to understand our genetic rules and sequence the 3.2 billion pairs of different elements in our DNA. “It was like you were talking fairytales,” Kurzrock said. “The conventional wisdom was that it would never happen. Never And then in 2003, never was over.”
It took the Human Gene Project 13 years, roughly one billion dollars, and scientists from six countries to sequence one gene complex. Today sequencing costs about a thousand dollars. The latest machines can produce the results in a day. The technology, combined with advanced cell analysis, clarifies the astonishing biochemical variations that make every human body unique.
1. What can we know about personalized medicine?| A．It has emerged a decade before. |
| B．It offers blanket recommendations. |
| C．It uses genetic information to help patients. |
| D．It administers treatment intended for most people. |
| A．Promising. | B．Highly risky. | C．Fruitless. | D．Strictly confidential. |
| A．Sequencing her immune cells. |
| B．Reprogramming her cancer cells |
| C．Analysis of her life style changes. |
| D．Identification of cancer-fighting cells. |
| A．Its wide applications. | B．Its recent advances. |
| C．Its major disadvantages. | D．Its attractive prospects. |
For thousands of years, an ancient Chinese medical practice, acupuncture(针灸),
Acupuncture,
Bacteriophages (phages) and other mobile genetic elements (MGEs) exert an immense selective pressure on
In the evolutionary arms race with CRISPR–Cas, phages and other MGEs have evolved diverse strategies to block or circumvent immunity. One widespread evasion mechanism uses protein-
| A．At a ball field. | B．In a classroom. | C．At a hospital. |
| A．At 8:20. | B．At 8:50. | C．At 9:20. |
7 . Very few people enjoy going to the dentist, especially for a filling. Often fillings need to be replaced during the patient’s lifetime. But is filling the cavity (蛀牙洞) with a foreign material really the best treatment? Is it possible that the tooth could repair itself with its own material — dentine (牙质)? Researchers at King’s College London have found a process that may replace the traditional method.
Paul Sharpe of King’s College London says the new treatment for cavities is simpler. It uses a drug that causes the tooth to fill in the hole naturally with dentine. “It involves putting a drug in the hole. It excites a natural process, which starts to occur anyway following the damage, so you can actually get the big hole repaired and the repair is the production of the natural material, the dentine.”
Usually a new drug requires repeated testing before it is approved for treatment. However, this drug that produces the regrowth material in teeth has already been approved. It is a drug used to treat Alzheimer’s disease and other disorders of the nervous system. Researchers explain that they use only a small amount and they use it locally. Usually that means the medicine is put directly on the affected area. It does not travel through the patient’s blood.
Nigel Carter heads Britain’s Oral Health Foundation. He describes the new treatment as an exciting possibility for dental care. But Carter also has a warning, “Actually regrowing the tooth that has been lost with a cavity would be really a huge step forward. But it's also important that we remember that filling the cavity is not the first place. It’s a preventable disease.”
1. When it comes to the dental treatment, researchers at King’s College London focus on .| A．why the cavity must be filled | B．what skills dentists should learn |
| C．when people have to see a dentist | D．how the tooth can repair itself |
| A．the full use of a new drug | B．the natural process of tooth repair |
| C．the good quality of filling materials | D．the practical way of finding the damage early |
| A．It has little effect on Alzheimer’s disease. |
| B．It is being tested before it gets final approval. |
| C．It has been put to use for treating other diseases. |
| D．It travels through the patients' blood and has side effects. |
| A．We should take good care of our teeth in daily life. |
| B．When you find the cavity, it is unnecessary to get it filled. |
| C．Taking exercise is the best way to prevent dental disease. |
| D．When you find a damaged tooth, you'd better repair it. |
8 . Alifa Chin is a 13-year-old Bangladeshi girl whose last name sometimes leads to her being mistaken for a Chinese.
“I like my name very much. I think my name is the
This year, Chin wrote a letter to President Xi Jinping to
“To
The girl’s father said, “We didn’t
“We have seen how people in other countries have gained a better understanding of China through the medical
| A．presence | B．symbol | C．signal | D．proof |
| A．pick up | B．hand over | C．give birth | D．work out |
| A．show | B．perform | C．follow | D．load |
| A．Luckily | B．Originally | C．Obviously | D．Gradually |
| A．transportation | B．shelter | C．budget | D．treatment |
| A．thankful | B．generous | C．proud | D．sympathetic |
| A．contribute | B．supply | C．express | D．release |
| A．relief | B．embarrassment | C．credit | D．surprise |
| A．called | B．offered | C．fought | D．encouraged |
| A．temporary | B．traditional | C．unique | D．contemporary |
| A．live up to | B．figure out | C．make up for | D．account for |
| A．agree | B．exhibit | C．expect | D．charge |
| A．unnecessary | B．unavoidable | C．uneventful | D．unbelievable |
| A．benefit | B．assistance | C．concern | D．agreement |
| A．helpful | B．grateful | C．wealthy | D．creative |
9 . Be it the flu or the coronavirus (冠状病毒), we can all take one basic step to keep ourselves healthy--wash our hands regularly. But how
It was 1846
While looking after the women, Semmelweis noticed something
Handwashing was finally officially adopted in the 1980s by the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. They
| A．surprised | B．thrilled | C．embarrassed | D．disappointed |
| A．volunteer | B．nurse | C．sponsor | D．pioneer |
| A．that | B．when | C．which | D．where |
| A．were comprised of | B．made up | C．consisted of | D．composed of |
| A．magic | B．concern | C．tale | D．secret |
| A．deadly | B．dead | C．deathly | D．dying |
| A．appealing | B．practical | C．odd | D．different |
| A．tended to | B．taken care | C．calmed down | D．worried about |
| A．with | B．at | C．on | D．in |
| A．treated | B．harmed | C．affected | D．infected |
| A．demanded | B．commanded | C．expected | D．recommended |
| A．leapt | B．changed | C．declined | D．ranged |
| A．Otherwise | B．Instead | C．Therefore | D．Nevertheless |
| A．unwilling | B．refused | C．ashamed | D．pretended |
| A．referred | B．thought | C．identified | D．looked |
10 . A cancer treatment no longer means what it used to be. Just a few decades ago, the survival rate beyond five years was less than 50%. Now, nearly 70% of those who get cancer survive that long, and that rate is set to rise. Why? Because, more than ever, chemotherapy (化疗) and radiation, once the only ways of cancer treatment, are being paired with or replaced by varieties of new drugs and treatments.
For example, the first medication for what was previously considered an “undruggable” lung cancer was recently approved in the United States, Canada, Europe and the U.K. And a brand-new precise chemotherapy drug delivered directly to breast cancer cells is giving hope to patients with the HER 2-positive form of the disease.
Another discovery has been the promise of a treatment called immunotherapy, as researchers around the world have discovered ways to use the body’s own immune (免疫) system to battle cancer cells.
Also driving hope is a focus on prevention. Decades of research and public education have led to greater awareness of how lifestyle changes can reduce our risk of developing cancer. According to an article from the journal Pharmaceutical Research and published by the National Institutes of Health, 90% to 95% of cancers can be owed to environment and lifestyle, rather than to genetic (基因的) factors.
Employing vaccines (疫苗) is another effective way of prevention. Take the mRNA cancer vaccines for example. The speedy development of COVID-19 vaccines was thanks to foundations already laid by researchers who had been working for years to create mRNA vaccines to fight cancer. These vaccines use a specially programmed molecule (分子) to activate an immune response in the body’s cells. Unlike the COVID-19 vaccines designed to help protect billions of people, each cancer mRNA vaccine is tailored to treat a single patient’s cancer.
In fact, this personalized approach can be made for everyone, and for every cancer.
1. Why is the survival rate beyond five years rising now?| A．Because new drugs and treatments have come out. |
| B．Because chemotherapy and radiation get advanced. |
| C．Because new drugs have been paired with old ones. |
| D．Because new treatments have replaced the old ones. |
| A．All the cancers are not related to genetic factors. |
| B．Most cancers have no relationship with lifestyle. |
| C．A focus on prevention is our only hope to deal with cancer. |
| D．All cancers have relationship with environment and lifestyle. |
| A．The COVID-19 vaccines can be used to fight some cancers. |
| B．One cancer mRNA vaccine can’t be used for another cancer. |
| C．One cancer mRNA vaccine can be used to treat patients of the same cancer. |
| D．The COVID-19 vaccines were created from previous cancer mRNA vaccines. |
| A．A diary entry. | B．A news report. |
| C．A book review. | D．A science fiction. |
