1. How long has the speaker been getting headaches?
| A．For the past ten years. | B．For about ten days. | C．Only since yesterday |
| A．He took some medicine. |
| B．He asked his neighbor to come over. |
| C．He did nothing about it. |
| A．He sent for a doctor. |
| B．He gave the speaker some painkillers. |
| C．He gave the speaker a special kind of treatment. |
| A．The pain almost killed him. |
| B．His headache was already cured. |
| C．The pain had gone by itself. |
2 . In recent years, advancements in artificial intelligence (AI) have brought both excitement and concerns to various fields. One area where AI is making a profound impact is the medical field, particularly in the domain of diagnostics.
Al-powered diagnostic systems leverage deep learning algorithms to analyze medical images, such as X-rays, MRIs, and CT scans. These algorithms can detect subtle patterns and anomalies that might be missed by human radiologists, potentially leading to earlier and more accurate diagnoses.
However, the integration of AI in medical diagnostics raises complex ethical questions. For instance, who should be held responsible if an AI system misdiagnoses a patient’s condition? Should AI algorithms be treated as medical professionals, with legal and liability implications? These questions become even more intricate when considering that AI systems learn from vast datasets of medical information, which might contain biases or inaccuracies.
Furthermore, the adoption of AI diagnostics could impact the role of healthcare professionals. Some argue that AI could enhance doctors’ capabilities by providing them with additional insights, while others fear that it might replace human expertise, leading to job losses and a potential decrease in the quality of patient care. Despite these challenges, proponents of AI diagnostics emphasize its potential to improve healthcare accessibility, especially in underserved regions where there is a shortage of skilled medical professionals. Al-powered diagnostics could provide preliminary assessments and recommendations, helping to bridge the gap between patients and healthcare providers.
1. What is the primary advantage of AI-powered diagnostic systems in the medical field?| A．They provide additional insights to doctors. |
| B．They replace the need for human radiologists. |
| C．They analyze medical images using deep learning algorithms. |
| D．They focus on detecting visible patterns in medical images. |
| A．The potential for AI algorithms to replace human doctors. |
| B．The reliability of AI algorithms in analyzing medical images. |
| C．The legal responsibility for misdiagnoses made by AI systems. |
| D．The biased data used for training AI algorithms. |
| A．AI could enhance doctors’ expertise and skills. |
| B．AI could lead to job losses in the medical field. |
| C．AI could decrease the quality of patient care. |
| D．AI could replace human doctors completely. |
| A．AI diagnostics could decrease the quality of patient care. |
| B．AI diagnostics could primarily serve regions with sufficient medical professionals. |
| C．AI diagnostics could bridge the gap in healthcare accessibility. |
| D．AI diagnostics could replace the need for skilled radiologists. |
3 . 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-1o-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．Buy medicines from hospitals. | B．Take drugs as early as possible. |
| C．Ask for suggestions from doctors. | D．Read the package ingredients of drugs. |
| 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 cannot cope with aging positively. |
| B．They are more easily affected by diseases. |
| C．Their body cannot handle medicines easily. |
| D．Their desire for health makes them unwise. |
| A．OTC medicines may not be safe. |
| B．Tips for taking over-the-counter drugs. |
| C．How to deal with an OTC drug overdose. |
| D．Should medicines be available “over the counter”? |
4 . Imagine a future where science has created your twin. Not a flesh-and-blood twin, but one that recreates your flesh and blood, your bones, your heart, your brain — your whole body, in fact — as an extremely complicated computer model.
Your doctors can use this digital twin to work out how you will respond to a particular drug or medical procedure. They can even look further into the future, creating a “healthcast”, to forecast what diseases might happen to you or how your lifestyle will affect your health as you age. It is the ultimate in personalized medicine. This is the bold vision set out in Virtual You: How building your digital twin will revolutionize medicine and change your life by Peter Coveney, director of the Centre for Computational Science, and Roger Highfield, science director of the Science Museum Group, UK.
Digital twins are already in widespread use in industries such as civil engineering. But these model systems are much simpler than the complex human body. Imagine all the parts that come together to make you work: from the 3 billion letters of your genome (基因组), the numerous molecules (分子) that make up your cells, the trillions of cells building your tissues and organs, and the environment having its input too. Now, imagine trying to create a model of this that is made to each unique individual and that predicts the changes that will take place over a lifetime. This is easier said than done. Changes in the systems biologists want to describe are usually different from what mathematicians describe as “non-linear” (非线性的). Another complication is “emergence”: where the whole of a system is greater than the sum of its parts. This complexity challenges mathematics and pushes computing to the limit too.
But getting to the next level — a whole human individual — is going to require yet more data and a revolution in computing technology far beyond what is currently possible. Whether we will get there is an open question, but Virtual You shows us what scientists from different fields can achieve when they all work together.
1. What be learned about your science-made twin according to Paragraph 1?| A．Your twin looks just like you. |
| B．Your twin knows your thoughts. |
| C．Your twin exists on the computer. |
| D．Your twin is created out of your DNA. |
| A．Human body is more complicated than models. |
| B．Digital twins are not widely used in industries. |
| C．Scientists lack enough data in building it. |
| D．Mathematicians and biologists hold different opinions. |
| A．Optimistic. |
| B．Uncertain. |
| C．Unconcerned. |
| D．Skeptical. |
| A．To stress the necessity of digital twins. |
| B．To show the effects of digital twins on future health. |
| C．To explain the building of digital twins in health. |
| D．To introduce new treatments for diseases in the future. |
5 . AIDS may be one of the most undesirable diseases in the world. Luckily, there is now hope for AIDS patients.
According to a recent paper published in the New England Journal of Medicine, Chinese scientists have successfully used CRISPR technology – a method of gene editing – to treat a patient with HIV. While it may not have cured the patient fully, it still represents a huge step forward in fighting the disease.
The patient was a 27-year-old Chinese man who was diagnosed with both AIDS and acute lymphoblastic leukemia (急性淋巴细胞白血病), a type of blood cancer. Despite his hopeless situation, doctors offered him a glimmer of hope: a bone marrow (骨髓) transplant to treat his cancer and an experimental treatment for his HIV.
They used this opportunity to edit the DNA in bone marrow stem cells from a donor before transplanting the cells into the patient.
Specifically, the treatment involved using the gene-editing tool CRISPR-Cas9 to delete a gene known as CCR5, which encodes a protein that HIV uses to get inside human cells. Without the gene, HIV is unable to infiltrate cells.
Talking about the gene, lead scientist Deng Hongkui told CNN, “After being edited, the cells — and the blood cells they produce — have the ability to resist HIV infection.”
Nineteen months after the treatment, the patient’s leukemia was in complete remission (缓解) and donor cells without CCR5 remained, according to the research paper.
Though the transplant did not cure the man’s HIV, it still showed the effectiveness of gene-editing technology, as there was no indication of any unintended genetic alterations – a major concern with past gene therapy experiments.
Amesh Adalja, a senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Centre for Health Security in the United States, who was not involved in the study, praised the treatment.
“They did a very innovative experiment. It was safe,” he told Live Science. “It should be viewed as a success.”
Deng believes gene-editing technology could “bring a new dawn” to blood-related diseases such as AIDS and sickle cell anemia (镰刀形细胞性贫血).
“Thanks to this new technology, the goal of a functional cure for AIDS is getting closer and closer,” he said.
1. The technology of CRISPR is to ________.| A．transplant cells | B．encode genes |
| C．remove proteins | D．produce cells |
| A．CCR5 and other genes in the patient’s cells were changed. |
| B．The number of cells infected by HIV decreased. |
| C．Some of the patient’s blood cells could resist HIV infection. |
| D．HIV no longer existed in the patient’s cells. |
| A．It provided an innovative way to cure AIDS patients. |
| B．It pointed out the problems of gene therapy. |
| C．It could offer a safe treatment for blood-related diseases. |
| D．It’s the first experiment to use gene-editing technology to treat AIDS. |
| A．A New Treatment to Patients | B．New Hope for HIV Patients |
| C．A New Medical Invention | D．New Technology, New Hope |
Traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) is a health care system in which patients
According to the World Health Organization, nearly 80 percent of the world's population depends for its primary health care needs
Increasingly, however, modern medicines also contain substances from animals and plants. Given growing populations, increasing wealth, and the spreading
7 . 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 |
8 . 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. |
9 . What will people die of 100 years from now? If you think that is not a simple question, you have not been paying attention to the revolution that is taking place in biotechnology(生物技术). With the help of new medicine, the human body will last a very long time. Death will come mainly from accidents, murder and war. Today's leading killers, such as heart disease, cancer, and aging itself, will become distant memories.
In discussion of technological changes, the Internet gets most of the attention these days. But the change in medicine can be the real technological event of our times. How long can humans live?Human brains were known to decide the final death. Cells are the basic units of all living things, and until recently, scientists were sure that the life of cells could not go much beyond 120 years because the basic materials of cells, such as those of brain cells, would not last forever. But the upper limits will be broken by new medicine. Sometime between 2050 and 2100, medicine will have advanced to the point at which every 10 years or so, people will be able to take medicine to repair their organs. The medicine, made up of the basic building materials of life, will build new brain cells, heart cells, and so on－in much the same way our bodies make new skin cells to take the place of old ones.
It is exciting to imaging that the advance in technology may be changing the most basic condition of human existence, but many technical problems still must be cleared up on the way to this wonderful future.
1. According to the passage, human death is now mainly caused by________| A．diseases and aging | B．accidents and war |
| C．accidents and aging | D．heart disease and war |
| A．heart disease will be far away from us |
| B．human brains can decide the final death |
| C．the basic materials of cells will last forever |
| D．human organs can be repaired by new medicine |
| A．medicine | B．the Internet | C．brain cells | D．human organs |
| A．human life will not last more than 120 years in the future |
| B．humans have to take medicine to build new skin cells now |
| C．much needs to be done before humans can have a longer life |
| D．we have already solved the technical problems in building new cells |
10 . Eyesight problems are common among all ages and if they are left untreated, they can cause serious headaches or other problems. The good news is that most eyesight problems can easily be sorted out by wearing glasses.
Regular eye tests are important for everyone. Children and teenagers, under the age of 16 and up to the age of 19 for those full-time education, have the right to have eye tests for free in Britain. As the eye test is free, there’s no excuse for not having a regular eye test. Doctors suggest that it’s better to have an eye test about once a year.
Wearing glasses isn’t always regarded as all that cool and teens who suddenly need to wear glasses may find it difficult to accept. If they’ve grown up wearing glasses, then they may be more used to it. However, if your eyes are in poor health, not wearing glasses can put even more pressure on your eyes and could make them even worse.
Thankfully, the days of little choice of glasses frames for teenagers are gone and there’s now a wide selection of frames. If a teen does need to wear glasses, then it’s good to let him or her choose the type, as he or she will be able to choose something he or she feels comfortable. Don’t forget to be guided by the experts on glasses, too.
1. According to the text, teens in the UK ________.| A．have few eyesight problems | B．can design their own glasses |
| C．change their glasses very often | D．can check their eyes without paying |
| A．find it difficult to buy comfortable glasses |
| B．prefer to wear cool glasses at an early age |
| C．are advised to wear glasses if their eyesight is poor |
| D．think they are much cooler when wearing glasses |
