1 . Walker didn't realize the dangers of e-cigarettes last December when he bought his first one. "I thought it was cool," says Walker, who moved to Florida Atlantic University a month later. Within weeks, given the pressures of adjusting to a new campus, he was smoking a pack or more a day. "After about a week and a half," he says, "I'd get nervous and anxious if I didn't have it."
In early March, Walker went to a hospital emergency room near campus complaining of chest pain, fever and feeling sick. "Eleven days later my chest hurt so bad that I couldn't even sit straight," says Walker. X-rays showed that Walker had what looked like pneumonia (肺炎) in his left lung. Within days, Walker was put on a respirator (呼吸器) and later sent by air to another hospital. "He was dying," says his mom, Candy, a nurse.
It took seven days for doctors to confirm that Walker's infection was caused by the adenovirus (腺病毒). But they were at a loss to explain how the virus had nearly killed an otherwise strong and healthy college student. The answer became clear in mid-April after his father Dave was terrified by what he found — so many e-cigarettes. "Most likely," says Dr. Hunley, "it was the e-cigarettes that led to his breath failure, which contributed to the spread of the adenovirus."
By the time Walker finally left the hospital in July he'd lost 80 pounds, and his left lung and both his kidneys(肾) had been destroyed. Doctors say he now needs to have the kidney transplanted. Walker admits he is shaken by his experience. Meanwhile, Candy says, "Every time I see someone smoking e-cigarettes, I show them pictures of Walker in the hospital and ask, 'Do you understand that you could end up like this?'"
1. Why did Walker smoke e-cigarettes heavily?| A．He thought smoking e-cigarettes cool and safe. |
| B．He unwillingly entered a new environment. |
| C．He couldn't adapt to the new campus quickly. |
| D．He was given much pressure by his teachers. |
| A．By reducing his weight sharply. | B．By giving off poisonous gas. |
| C．By spreading the adenovirus. | D．By speeding breath failure. |
| A．Walker has realized the dangers of e-cigarettes. |
| B．Walker promises to warn others of e-cigarettes. |
| C．Walker had kidneys transplanted before leaving hospital. |
| D．Walker has recovered completely from his disease. |
| A．The Smoking Expenses | B．Walker and E-cigarettes |
| C．The Harm of E-cigarettes | D．A Brave Teenager—Walker |
2 . For more than 4,000 years, people in Asia have used acupuncture (针灸) to treat illnesses.
People who practice acupuncture must take courses to learn how to do it correctly.
Acupuncture needles are made of metal and about as thick as a human hair. They normally go less than 1 cm into the skin. The patient rests for a short time and then the needles are removed. Acupuncture usually doesn’t hurt. There is also a different form of acupuncture called “acupressure” where you don’t need needles.
Chinese medicine teaches us that all acupuncture points are located along pathways called meridians (经络). Each of these meridians carries energy, which the Chinese call “qi ”, to certain points of the body.
| A．Acupuncture can control pain and sickness. |
| B．Discuss acupuncture with your family members. |
| C．Doctors just use their fingers to press the points of the body. |
| D．Some people feel relaxed after receiving acupuncture treatment. |
| E．It is part of the ancient practice of traditional Chinese medicine. |
| F．In many places, only doctors are allowed to perform acupuncture. |
| G．However, doctors today are not sure how acupuncture really works. |
3 . People have different ways of dealing with a common cold. Some take over the counter medicines such as aspirin while others try popular home remedies(治疗) like herbal tea or chicken soup. Yet here is the tough truth about the common cold: nothing really cures it.
So why do people sometimes believe that their remedies work? According to James Taylor, professor at the University of Washington, colds usually go away on their own in about a week, improving a little each day after symptoms peak, so it's easy to believe it's medicine rather than time that deserves the credit, USA Today reported.
It still seems hard to believe that we can deal with more serious diseases yet are powerless against something so common as a cold. Recently, scientists came closer to figure out why. To understand it, you first need to know how antiviral drugs work. They attack the virus by attaching to and changing the surface structures of the virus. To do that, the drug must fit and lock into the virus like the right piece of a jigsaw(拼图), which means scientists have to identify the virus and build a 3D model to study its surface before they can design an antiviral drug that is effective enough.
The two cold viruses that scientists had long known about were rhinovirus(鼻病毒) A and B. But they didn't find out about the existence of a third virus, rhinovirus C, until 2006. All three of them contribute to the common cold, but drugs that work well against rhinovirus A and B have little effect when used against rhinovirus C.
''This explains most of the previous failures of drug trials against rhinoviruses,'' study leader Professor Ann C. Palmenberg at the University of Wiscons in Madison, US, told Science Daily.
Now, more than 10 years after the discovery of rhinovirus C, scientists have finally built a highly detailed 3D model of the virus, showing that the surface of the virus is, as expected, different from that of other cold viruses.
With the model in hand, hopefully a real cure for a common cold is on its way. Soon, we may no longer have to waste our money on medicines that don't really work.
1. What does the author think of popular remedies for a common cold?| A．They are quite effective. | B．They are slightly helpful. |
| C．They actually have no effect. | D．They still need to be improved. |
| A．By breaking up cold viruses directly. |
| B．By changing the surface structures of the cold viruses. |
| C．By preventing colds from developing into serious diseases. |
| D．By absorbing different kinds of cold viruses at the same time. |
| A．The surface of cold viruses looks quite similar. |
| B．Scientists have already found a cure for the common cold. |
| C．Scientists were not aware of the existence of rhinovirus C until recently. |
| D．Knowing the structure of cold viruses is the key to developing an effective cure. |
| A．Drugs against cold viruses | B．Helpful home remedies |
| C．No current cure for common cold | D．Research on cold viruses |
4 . I watched my Dad close the door. It was a really cold night in dead silence and I was all alone at home. My parents left because they had been running fever for several days and they were showing other symptoms of COVID-19. It was the 9th day of Wuhan lockdown (封锁) starting on January 23.
The virus we now know as COVID-19 is somehow fearsome partly because it does not discriminate (区别对待) in choosing who it infects. But that is only partly true. All the evidence suggests that it can be merciless to older people, so I was wondering whether my parents would make it and whether we would ever take family photos, which my parents and I had talked about during the Spring Festival holiday.
On their second day away my parents called and asked me how I was. We talked using FaceTime, and the moment I saw mom lying there with an oxygen mask and my dad could not talk without breathing heavily, I realized that I had to live on my own.
But two weeks later, I came across a fever and had to go into quarantine (隔离) and be put under medical observations for 14 days. Fortunately, my illness turned out to be due to a bacterial infections but not COVID-19.
Everything there was hectic (忙碌的), there seemed to be a shortage of medical staff and materials were in short supply. Even though the doctors and nurses were covered from head to toe, I could see how tired they were when I looked into their bloodshot eyes.
They would work a whole day preparing for new patients and seemed incredibly apologetic for not having everything that was needed. Most of the patients were really understanding, but of course there were those who were not, and complained loudly, but all the doctors and nurses tried their best to deal with it in a calming way. And they are all from other cities like Shanghai and Guangzhou, and some of them are just three or four years older than me.
When the quarantine was over, every patient effusively thanked the workers for what they had done, but the answer they received was exactly the same: “That’s what we’re here for.”
1. When did the author’s parents leave her for the hospital?| A．January 23. | B．January 30. | C．January 31. | D．February 2. |
| A．Succeed. | B．Join in. | C．Arrive. | D．Survive. |
| A．Both the author and her parents got infected with COVID-19. |
| B．The majority of the patients understood the doctors and nurses. |
| C．The patients apologized to the doctors and nurses because they were too tired. |
| D．The author didn’t get infected with COVID-19 because the virus can only infect the older. |
| A．Admirable. | B．Outgoing. | C．Impatient. | D．Adorable. |
5 . Increasingly, Americans are becoming their own doctors, by going online to diagnose their symptoms, order home health tests or medical devices, or even self-treat their illnesses with drugs from Internet pharmacies （药店）.Some avoid doctors because of the high cost of medical care, especially if they lack health insurance. Or they may stay away because they find it embarrassing to discuss their weight, smoking, alcohol consumption or couch potato habits. Patients may also fear what they might learn about their health, or they distrust physicians because of negative experiences in the past. But playing doctor can also be a deadly game.
Every day, more than six million Americas turn to the Internet for medical answers—most of them aren't nearly sceptical enough of what they find. A 2002 survey by the Pew Internet & American life Project found that 72 percent of those surveyed believe all or most of what they read on health websites. They shouldn't look up " headache," and the chances of finding reliable and complete information, free from a motivation for commercial gain, are only one in ten, reports an April 2005 Brown Medical School study. Of the 169 websites the researchers rated, only 16 are scored as "high quality.” Recent studies have found faulty facts about all sorts of other disorders, causing one research team to warn that a large amount of incomplete, inaccurate and even dangerous information exists on the Internet.
The problem is that most people don't know the safe way to surf the Web. "They use a search engine like Google, get 18 trillion choices and start clicking. But that's risky, because almost anybody can put up a site that looks authoritative (权威的)，so it's hard to know if what you’re reading is reasonable or not,” says Dr. Sarah Bass from the National Cancer Institute.
1. According to the text, an increasing number of Americans .| A．are suffering from mental disorders |
| B．turn to Internet pharmacies for help |
| C．like to play deadly games with doctors |
| D．are sceptical about surfing medical websites |
| A．They find medical devices easy to operate. |
| B．They prefer to be diagnosed online by doctors. |
| C．They are afraid to face the truth of their health. |
| D．They are afraid to misuse their health insurance. |
| A．More than 6 million Americans distrust doctors. |
| B．Only 1/10 of medical websites aim to make a profit. |
| C．About 1/10 of the websites surveyed are of high quality. |
| D．72% of health websites offer incomplete and faulty facts. |
| A．It's cheap to self-treat your own illness. |
| B．It's embarrassing to discuss your bad habits. |
| C．It's reasonable to look up a medical website. |
| D．It's dangerous to be your own doctor. |
