1 . Researchers at MIT created a high-tech pill that starts to vibrate (震动) once it makes contact with liquid in the user’s stomach and make him or her feel full. The pill was reportedly thought up by Shriya Srinivasan, currently an assistant professor of bioengineering at Harvard University.

VIBES, short for Vibrating Ingestible BioEleotronic Stimulator, was only recently made public in a study published in the Science Journal, but it is already being announced by the media as the future of weight loss. Although it has yet to be tested on humans, trials on pigs have achieved very hopeful results. After about 30 minutes of VIBES activity, pigs consumed on average almost 40 percent less food in the next half hour than they did without the smart pill. Apparently, the revolutionary device works by activating stretch receptors in the stomach, modeling the presence of food. This in turn signals the hypothalamus (下丘脑) to increase the levels of hormones that make us feel full. The vibrating stimulator, which is about the size of a vitamin pill, is powered by an encased battery and activated either by the gastric fluid (胃液) breaking down a coat around the pill, or by an incorporated timer. After producing the desired effect, the pill exits the body with other solid waste:

The good news is that it is expected to have a cost in the cents to one dollar range, and researchers say that it may eventually be possible to implant the stimulator and thus remove the need for people to constantly swallow it.

“Our study demonstrates the effectiveness of a low-cost, non-operative intervention to reduce food intake and ca lorie consumption. The device functions effectively in the stomach and leading to fullness,” said Giovanni Traverso, co-author of the study. “The device has the potential to revolutionize options for weight loss treatment. However, future studies will need to explore the physiological effects of the device before it’s available for patients.”

Researchers are now exploring ways to scale up the producing of VIBES capsules which could enable clinical trials in humans.

1. What is the outcome of taking the pill?

A．Liquid production.	B．Food storage.
C．Sensation of fullness.	D．Recovery of users.

2. Which aspect of the device is mentioned in paragraph 2?

A．Its working principle.	B．Its intelligence.
C．Its testing history.	D．Its side effect.

3. What is the researchers’ ultimate goal of the device?

A．To produce gastric fluid with it.	B．To destroy the coat around it.
C．To fix it in human body.	D．To remove solid waste from it.

4. What is Giovanni Traverso’s attitude towards the future of the device?

A．Worried.

B．Cautious.

C．Doubtful.

D．Confused.

2 . A man with advanced Parkinson’s disease (帕金森氏症) is now able to walk almost normally again thanks to electrodes implanted (电极植入) in his spinal cord (脊椎), researchers said on Monday. The medical first was achieved by Swiss researchers who had previously pioneered similar breakthroughs to help disabled people walk again.

“This could be a game-changing technology to help bring back movement in people with advanced Parkinson’s,” said David Dexter, research director at Parkinson’s UK.

Marc Gauthier, the 62-year-old patient who lives in France, has suffered from the brain disorder for about 30 years. Like more than 90 percent of people with advanced Parkinson’s, Mar c has had great difficulty walking. What are known as “freezing” experiences — during which patients are unable to move for a limited time, putting them at risk of falling — are particularly awful, Marc told AFP.

Much remains unknown about Parkinson’s disease, making treatment difficult. But the disease can seriously affect the lives of patients, sometimes keeping them to bed or a wheelchair. So when the opportunity came to go through an operation in Switzerland, Marc gladly accepted the chance.

“Now I can do whatever I want,” Marc says. “I can go for a walk and go out shopping by myself.” He adds that he can now walk much more easily — he is even planning a trip to Brazil — but it still requires concentration, particularly when climbing upstairs.

The Swiss team, led by surgeon Jocelyne Bloch and neuroscientist Gregoire Courtine , implanted a complex system of electrodes called a “neuroprosthesis (神经假体)” at important points along Marc’s spinal cord. The neuroprosthesis was first tested on animals, and then implanted in Marc, who has used it for roughly eight hours a day over nearly two years.

The Swiss team has expanded their experiment to a group of six Parkinson’s patients, aiming to know how it could help others, given the disease affects people in different ways. However, treatment using the implant could be quite expensive, potentially limiting how many patients would have access.

1. What is David Dexter’s attitude to the Swiss breakthrough?

A．Unconcerned.

B．Doubtful.

C．Positive.

D．Unclear.

2. What can Marc do after the surgery?

A．Volunteer as a tour guide in Brazil.	B．Run to his heart’s content.
C．Go to the supermarket alone.	D．Make a phone call while climbing the stairs.

3. What do we know about the surgery?

A．It was first tested on Marc Gauthier.	B．It is hardly affordable for ordinary people.
C．It has been performed on many patients.	D．It was done by researchers in the UK.

4. What is the best title for the text?

A．A Spinal Implant Allows a Parkinson’s Patient to Walk Again

B．Parkinson’s Patients Have to Deal With Difficulties in Life

C．Swiss Experts Have Created a Drug to Treat Parkinson’s

D．New Technology Prevents People From Developing Parkinson’s

3 . Shenzhen in Guangdong province has become the first city in China to allow specialist nurses to prescribe (开药方) selected drugs and order tests, in a move that is expected to increase efficiencies in the healthcare system and reduce the patient-load burden on physicians.

Under a new rule in October that took effect in January, eligible nurses will be permitted to order examinations, treatments considering their expert skills and knowledge of specialist nursing or community healthcare. Their prescriptions must be based on existing diagnoses (诊断) made by physicians.

To become a nursing specialist, applicants should have a bachelor’s degree in nursing, five years of working experience, obtained an advanced nursing qualification and have attended a months-long specialist training program and passed a final test.

“Medical institutions must review inappropriate prescriptions given by nurses,” said the regulation. “Nursing specialists who are found to have given three or more improper prescriptions will have their prescribing power stopped for three to six months and will have to undergo retraining before regaining the authorization,” it added.

“Considering the difference in professional positioning, medical education background and work experience between physicians and nurses, it is necessary to fully analyze the necessity and practicability of the nurses’ prescriptive authority,” the commission said.

Zhou Wensi has a bachelor’s degree in nursing and is now a specialist nurse in periodontitis (牙周炎) , or gum disease, at Shenzhen Stomatology Hospital in the city’s Pingshan district.

“Our hospital has not begun allowing us to prescribe. If the rule goes into effect in the future, we’ll likely be able to directly prescribe mouthwash, anti-inflammatory drugs and painkillers to patients,” she said.

   However, she also noted that most patients visiting the hospital are in need of treatment delivered by doctors with assistance from nurses like her, so the new regulation is not expected to have a major impact.

1. Why does Shenzhen give permission for specialist nurses’ special rights?

A．To improve the overall ability of the specialist nurses.

B．To speed up the development of the healthcare system.

C．To enhance the work efficiency and lighten doctors’ load.

D．To respond to the demands of doctors, nurses and patients.

2. What does the word “eligible” underlined in the second paragraph refer to?

A．well-recognized

B．Qualified

C．flexible

D．hard-working

3. What do we learn about the new regulation?

A．A specialist nurse should follow the rules strictly.

B．No institutions take charge of the prescriptions .

C．Not all specialist nurses can prescribe drugs freely .

D．A specialist nurse always has the prescribing power.

4. What is Zhou Wensi’s attitude toward the prospect of nurses’ prescribing drugs?

A．Doubtful.

B．Indifferent.

C．Neutral.

D．Hopeful.

4 . 听下面一段较长对话，回答以下小题。
1. What can the woman do now?

A．Eat spicy food.

B．Drink water.

C．Drink wine.

2. How will the woman go to the hospital?

A．By car.

B．On foot.

C．By bus.

3. When do the speakers decide to meet tomorrow?

A．At 6:30 a.m.

B．At 7:30 a.m.

C．At 8:00 a.m.

5 . 听下面一段较长对话，回答以下小题。
1. What is the woman probably?

A．A teacher.

B．A secretary

C．A physician.

2. Why did the man move to Los Angles?

A．He’s got a promotion.

B．He’s landed a new job.

C．He’s to take an examination.

3. When will the man meet the headmaster?

A．At 9:00 a.m.

B．At 10:00 a.m.

C．At 11:00 a.m.

4. How will the man get his report?

A．By e-mail.

B．By app

C．By telephone.

6 . When delivering medications to patients, one of the most effective methods is direct injection (注射) into the bloodstream using a needle. But this can be an uncomfortable experience, especially for kids or adults with a fear of needles. While patients do have the option to take oral pills instead, drugs containing large molecules (分子) are not absorbed effectively this way.

Now, inspired by octopus suckers (章鱼吸盘), researchers from China and Switzerland have designed a needle-free alternative: a tiny, drug-filled, cup-like patch (贴片) that sticks to the inside of the cheeks. The device is easily accessible, and it can be removed at any time and the drug gets absorbed through the lining of the inner cheek, the team reports in a paper in Science Translational Medicine.

To test the design, the team 3D printed the suckers. They loaded each with the drug and stuck them inside the cheeks of three beagles, a kind of dog which has a similar inner cheek lining to humans. For comparison, they also delivered the drug to beagles via a pill. After three hours, the team found that drug blood concentrations in dogs with the patch were more than 150 times higher than in the dogs that took a tablet. They also found patches worked effectively for drugs with large molecules.

40 healthy human volunteers self-applied water-filled patches to see how well they would stay on while talking and moving their mouths. After 30 minutes, only five of the 40 patches had fallen off, which was because of improper placement. Most volunteers said they would prefer a patch over injections for daily applications.

Still, the team only tested the patch for a short time so they would need to find out what would happen if it was used repeatedly. They’d also need to determine which drugs would work with the technology: the target is large molecules, such as those used to treat obesity or osteoporosis, but they can’t be too large to fit in the cup.

1. Why do the researchers develop the patch?

A．To help patients overcome the fear of needles.

B．To enable kids to swallow tablets smoothly.

C．To offer a better way of drug delivery.

D．To guarantee the efficiency of oral pills.

2. What does the research on dogs prove?

A．It is technologically possible to 3D print the patches.

B．The cheek lining of dogs is similar to that of humans.

C．Patches fall easily with their mouth movement.

D．Drugs are absorbed better through patches than pills.

3. Which of the following can best describe the device?

A．Innovative and profitable.

B．Effective and user-friendly.

C．Affordable and accessible.

D．Flexible and long-lasting.

4. What does the last paragraph stress?

A．The related issues to be solved.

B．The risk of using patches repeatedly.

C．The way to identity large molecules.

D．The trouble of improving the technology.

7 . 语法填空

Cholera used to be one of the most     1     (fear) diseases in the world, until a British doctor, John Snow, showed     2     it could be overcome. This illness causes severe diarrhoea, dehydration, and even death. In     3     early 19th century, when an outbreak of cholera hit Europe, millions of people died from the disease.

Tuyouyou was chosen as a researcher of a team of scientists     4     the purpose of discovering a new treatment for malaria.

8 . 语法填空

ChatGPT could be better than GPs (全科医生) at treating depression (抑郁症). It is not affected by class and gender (性别),     1     study has found. Researchers discovered that the artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot did not distinguish (区别) between men and women or economic status when     2    (decide) how to treat patients with mild and severe depression.

The study     3    (publish) in the British Medical Journal. It compared the treatment plans prescribed (开处方) by 1,249 doctors. They were in France. They compared them with that of the AI bot. It was for patients with depressive symptoms. These include sadness, sleeping and     4    (lose) of appetite. It said there was “no significant difference” in the treatment     5     the AI system recommended. It did not prescribe     6    (different) for men and women or white collar (白领) and blue collar workers.

    7    , it said doctors prescribed “significantly less” antidepressants (抗抑郁药) to women than men. They “commonly” prescribed antidepressants without therapy (疗法) to blue collar workers and a “combination” of both     8     white collar workers. For those with mild depression, ChatGPT prescribed therapy to 97.5 percent of hypothetical (假定的) patients presented with mild depression. This was in line with clinical guidance     9    (compare) with 4.3 percent of the same patients that were referred by GPs. For those     10     severe depression, ChatGPT recommended therapy and a drug to every single patient. GPs did this in less than half of the cases (44.4 percent). They opted for drugs only for four in 10 people.

9 . Healthy human skin is covered with bacteria (细菌) that are quick to settle in an open wound. To prevent these organisms from spreading through the body, which can permanently injure or kill a person, the infected wound may need to be cleaned and treated with antibiotics. Medical professionals typically identify infections by unwrapping and observing a wound or by swabbing (用拭子擦拭) it and conducting a laboratory test. But removing a wound dressing can slow down the healing process. Plus, observations are subjective, while swab tests take time and require that a patient be physically present.

To address these issues, some research teams are developing devices that sit under bandages and continuously monitor indirect signs of infection, such as changes in wound temperature or acidity. And scientists at the National University of Singapore have now created an even more direct infection sensor.

This sensor can detect an enzyme (酶) called DNase. The enzyme acts as a reliable infection indicator because disease-causing bacteria produce it in large amounts inside wounds, whereas bacteria on healthy skin do not—so testing for the substance reduces the chance of a false positive result. Furthermore, DNase builds up before other infection signs appear. The new alert system, nicknamed the“wireless infection detection on wounds” (WINDOW) sensor, was detailed in Science Advances.

WINDOWs enzyme-sensing parts rely on a material called DNAgel. There searchers developed a particular kind of DNAgel that remains stable in watery environments, such as the human body, but begins to break down in the presence of DNase. They connected this gel (凝胶) to a chip that senses when the gel responds by sending a signal to a smartphone.

Thus far, the team has exposed the DNAgel to wound swabs from 18 people’s wounds to see how much the material degraded in the presence of the bacteria. There searchers also used the device on six living lab mice whose wounds were exposed to the same bacterial species, and it successfully detected infections.

1. What is the first paragraph mainly about?

A．The harm of common wounds.

B．The treatment of infected wounds.

C．The intervention on wound healing.

D．The dilemma of infection observation.

2. How does the WINDOW sensor detect infections?

A．By comparing wound acidity.

B．By detecting the DNase enzyme.

C．By measuring the bacteria amount.

D．By observing changes in wound color.

3. What can we expect of the WINDOW sensor in the future?

A．It will cut down the length of infection-treating.

B．It could reduce the cost of infection observation.

C．It can monitor wounds continuously and remotely.

D．It might help conduct laboratory tests on wounds.

4. What can be the best title for the text?

A．Innovations in Wound Infection Detection

B．Removing the Dangers of Open Wounds

C．Recognizing the Role of DNase in Healing

D．Challenges in Wound Care and Treatment

10 . When Arvin Kuipers, who graduated from Beijing University of Chinese Medicine in 2017 and loves Chinese culture, asks his patients to stick out their tongue so he can diagnose(诊断) their illness, many are confused.

Kuipers, 30, practicing Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) in Amsterdam in the Netherlands, said, “In TCM I need to do face and tongue diagnosis. That’s strange for people in my country.” One elderly woman had been visiting him occasionally for advice, but her first experience with TCM surprised her. She had never experienced acupuncture (针灸) or any other TCM treatment. “She came in, and I examined her face and tongue,” said Kuipers. “I told the patient her kidneys were not doing well and that she wasn’t getting proper sleep.” The woman was shocked by his insight and asked if he had been spying on her. “Actually, it was easy to diagnose her condition when I saw the dark rings under her eyes. Her energy levels were also very low at the time.”

Kuipers opened his TCM clinic in September. Most of his work involves performing acupuncture, cupping as well as tuina — a TCM massage that patients in the West like the most, he said. In some cases he also gave his patients traditional herbal medicines.

Kuipers usually makes a cup of Chinese tea to calm his patients if they are nervous about the acupuncture needles. He also explains to them the meridian (经络) system, which is a central concept of TCM, yin and yang, and other concepts. “In TCM, good health requires balanced yin and yang, so practitioners not only pay attention to a patient’s illness, but also to his or her overall physical condition,” said Kuipers. “TCM is also a different culture and offers a new perspective, instead of being a curing method.”

As of early April, Kuipers has treated more than 200 patients, many of whom come to his clinic every week. “TCM does work, and works well. My patients really feel better with it, so I value it, and when my patients feel better I also feel better.”

1. What can we learn from the elderly woman’s story in paragraph 2?

A．The elderly woman trusted TCM treatment in the beginning.

B．TCM is very different from the treatment in her country.

C．The elderly woman used to visit Kuipers a lot for TCM.

D．The elderly woman was shocked at her kidney s not doing well

2. Which TCM treatment is most welcomed by the patients in the West?

A．Tuina.

B．Acupuncture.

C．Cupping.

D．Herbal medicines.

3. What is paragraph 4 mainly about?

A．Why Kuipers’ patients are fond of Chinese tea.

B．How Kuipers explains meridian system to his patients.

C．How Kuipers applies Chinese culture and treatments to patients.

D．Why Kuipers pays little attention to overall physical condition.

4. What is the author’s purpose in writing the passage?

A．To praise Kuipers for his TCM treatments.

B．To stress the value of teaching foreigners TCM.

C．To show the popularity of TCM with patients in the Netherlands.

D．To tell the story of Kuipers practising TCM in the Netherlands.