1 . Rates of anti-dining syndrome in newborns surged in recent years, but a newer approach to caring for newborn babies exposed to drugs during pregnancy gets them out of the hospital sooner and with less medication. Newborns in drug withdrawal may experience upset stomach, miserable crying and extreme discomfort. Researchers looked at the impacts of the ESC (Eat, Sleep, Console care) approach on 1,300 infants at 26 US hospitals, and compared them with the current standard for caring for infants exposed to drugs.

ESC encourages involvement from parents, and prioritizes care that doesn’t involve medication, breastfeeding, for example. The usual approach involves a nurse measuring a baby’s withdrawal symptoms before providing treatment.

Compared to usual care, use of the ESC approach substantially decreased time until those infants were medically ready for discharge, without increasing specified harmful outcomes.

The infants assessed with the ESC method were discharged after eight days on average, compared with almost 15 days for the infants who were cared for by the standard approach. Additionally, infants in the ESC care group were 63% less likely to receive drug medication — 19.5% received medication compared with 52% in the group receiving usual care.

The current approach to usual care is a very comprehensive and nurse-led way of assessing the infant, whereas the ESC approach involves the mom in the way that you assess the infant, and allows the mom to try her best to comfort the infants and see if the infant is able to be consoled or is able to eat or is able to sleep.

“So, in that way, it’s a little bit more functional, like looking at the abilities of the infants versus how severely the infant is affected. Assessment results determine whether a baby should receive medication to control withdrawal symptoms,’’ said Baker, the director of the NIH HEAL Initiative, which provides funds to researchers studying ways to relieve the country’s drug health crisis.

1. Which of the followings can’t be listed as the difference between the current and ESC approach?

A．The method in removing the drug withdrawal syndrome.

B．The time when the newborns are discharged form treatment.

C．The contribution the mom made in assessing how the syndrome progressed.

D．The tough time the infants experienced in discharging the sufferings.

2. What does the underlined word “them” in Paragraph One refer to?

A．Impacts of ESC approach on the infants.	B．Infants with drug withdrawal syndrome.
C．Hospitals caring for those infants.	D．Researchers who conducted the study.

3. What does the author tend to focus on in caring the newborns with anti-dining syndrome?

A．Figuring out how the infants can recover themselves.

B．Looking at what is affecting the infants severely.

C．The pace in which hospitals are implementing the care approach.

D．The rules nurses and moms are playing in dealing with the emergency.

4. How does the author show his support to the ESC approach?

A．Parents should be convinced of the effective approach.

B．All infants with the infectious syndrome will recover with its help.

C．Maybe fewer of the severe infants should receive medication-based treatment.

D．The current standard should be more comprehensive in practical treatment.

4 . 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.

7 . In the 1770s, an English doctor called Edward Jenner gave his gardener’s son cowpox (牛痘) and then deliberately infected him with smallpox (天花) to test his assumption that people who were frequently exposed to cowpox, a similar but less severe virus, would avoid catching smallpox. It worked and cowpox as the vaccine (疫苗) was highly effective. “Vaccination”, from the Latin word for cow, soon became commonplace.

Challenge trials are forms of research where, rather than relying on data from natural infections, we intentionally expose someone to a disease in order to test the effectiveness of a vaccine or treatment. Things have changed a lot since Jenner’s time, of course, when it was not uncommon for doctors to conduct this kind of research. Even so, there’s the continuous sense that there’s something immoral about making someone ill on purpose.

But this shouldn’t blind us to the extraordinary power of challenge trials. They could become increasingly important weapons in the medical research, in a situation where vaccine technology is advancing and the threat of diseases jumping from animals into human beings is increasing.

Much has been done to reduce the risks of challenge trials. Like respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), researchers have involved adults who are at a low risk of severe illness. These acts have already cut down a massive range of vaccine candidates. With their help, the world will soon have the first vaccines against RSV, which kills tens of thousands of newborn babies each year. But not all diseases are like these ones. We don’t always know the dangers volunteers might face; we don’t always have treatments ready. What then?

We could, of course, just avoid these questions entirely, and rely on other types of research.But that doesn’t always work: sometimes, animal testing is tricky and uninformative, because the disease doesn‘t develop in the same way as it would in humans. In contrast, challenge trials can be deeply informative within weeks, with far fewer volunteers. And the benefits can be surprisingly high. Take the latest pandemic. At the end of last year, as the number of deaths is estimated to have reached about 17.8 million, it’s also estimated that 20 million had been saved by vaccines.In the years to come, they will hopefully save millions more.

In order to make sure we are as protected as possible from current and future threats, we should try to get rid of the misbelief in challenge trials, making them a more familiar part of our tool kits. Perhaps the greatest reward of all would be to make sure participants’ efforts are worthwhile: by designing trials to be fair and effective and applying them when and where they might make a real difference. In short, by helping them to save thousands, if not millions of lives.

1. The author tells the story of Edward Jenner mainly to______.

A．give a definition of challenge trials

B．introduce the topic of challenge trials

C．highlight the effectiveness of his vaccine

D．explain the origin of the word “vaccination”

2. What can we infer from the passage?

A．The issues behind challenge trials can be solved.

B．The dangers of challenge trials outweigh the benefits they bring.

C．Challenge trials can benefit numerous lives in spite of their risks.

D．Challenge trials can set back the development of vaccine technologies.

3. What does the author intend to tell us?

A．People should still be careful about challenge trials.

B．A more open attitude should be taken towards challenge trials.

C．Challenge trials guarantee participants protection against threats.

D．More volunteers involved can improve the accuracy of challenge trials.

4. Which would be the best title for the passage?

A．Should we use challenge trials to find cures?

B．Can challenge trials be a block to medical progress?

C．Can challenge trials be the end of infectious diseases?

D．Should we replace animal testing with challenge trials?

8 . Many people love the Halloween season, particularly young ones. It’s not hard to understand. The Halloween season is a time for fun-sized candy, giving rocks to trick or treaters, apple cider donuts, and frights. The very last-frights, are generally all in good fun. But can they be dangerous? Can someone be scared to death?

The key factor in an imagined scare-caused death is a little chemical that anyone who’s played a particularly intense game of hide-and-seek is very familiar with: adrenaline (肾上腺素). Fear puts the body in a state of severe emotional anxiety, which in turn causes the autonomic fight-or-flight response.

The fight-or-flight response is an evolutionary defence mechanism (机制) which acts in your best interest when there is a noticed threat. You sweat a lot, your anxiety is exacerbated, your blood glucose (葡萄糖) levels are increased, and your heart rate is higher. Like a cornered animal, you’re a bit less reasonable, a bit stranger, but a bit more ready to survive.

Now, back to the adrenaline. Adrenaline causes all of these processes, but there’s just one organ, which, if overloaded, can lead to sudden death. The human body doesn’t immediately come to an end as soon as a kidney (肾) fails, but when a heart stops working, the whole business fails. This is what happens to your body during an adrenaline rush.

Adrenaline causes calcium (钙) to enter the heart at a higher rate, and when there’s more calcium rushing through the heart, it has harder time resetting to its normal resting rate. This can cause a dangerous condition, which prevents blood from pumping to the rest of the body. Without immediate treatment, this can lead to sudden death.

Of course, such cause of death isn’t unique to being scared. Any event that increases one’s adrenal level could lead to this dangerous condition. So if you are planning on scaring others the next Halloween season, be sure to do it in a controlled setting, especially if you have a history of heart problems.

1. What do we learn about the fight-or-flight response mentioned in Paragraph 2?

A．It makes us think in a better way.

B．It prevents adrenaline from rising.

C．It has nothing to do with little kids.

D．It is meant to help us survive better.

2. The underlined word “exacerbated” in Paragraph 3 means “________”.

A．acquired

B．relieved

C．worsened

D．addressed

3. What will probably happen during the dangerous condition according to Paragraph 5?

A．Having a failed kidney.

B．Having faster blood circulation.

C．Having too much calcium in our blood.

D．Having irregular heartbeats.

4. We can learn from the passage that we should ________.

A．enjoy Halloween in a controlled way

B．avoid low blood glucose levels

C．exercise to protect ourselves from heart disease

D．avoid scaring others during the Halloween screen

5. What would be the best title for the passage?

A．Is it enjoyable to frighten others?

B．Is it possible to be scared to death?

C．Why is too much adrenaline dangerous?

D．What to watch out for during the Halloween season?

9 . “Going wireless is the future for just about everything!” That is a quote from scientist Sreekanth Chalasani, and we can’t help but agree. Realizing this, a team of scientists has made a breakthrough toward wirelessly controlling human cells using sound, in a technique called “sonogenetics (声遗传学).” This concept may seem strange but let us explain.

Basically, the term “sonogenetics” means using ultrasound (超声波) to change the behavior of cells in a non-invasive manner. “We already know that ultrasound is safe, and that it can go through bone, muscle and other tissues, making it the ultimate tool for controlling cells deep in the body,” says Chalasani.

Low-frequency ultrasound waves can target a particular protein that is sensitive to the signal. This research, published in Nature Communications, focused on TRPA1. When this protein is stimulated through the ultrasound waves, it also stimulates the cells which carry it. What type of cell is being stimulated depends on the outcome. For example, a muscle cell may contract with stimulation, or a neuron (神经元) in the brain will fire. In this experiment, scientists genetically marked cells with an increased concentration of TRPA1, making them the key targets of the ultrasound waves.

Currently, treating conditions like Parkinson’s disease requires scientists to implant electrodes (电极) in the brain which stimulate certain disordered cells. Researchers hope that sonogenetics can one day replace these invasive treatments.

In the future, the team wants to adjust the placement and amount of TRPAI around the body using the gene treatment. Gene delivery techniques have already been shown to be successful in humans, such as in treating blindness. Therefore, it’s just a case of adjusting this theory to a different sound-based setting.

“Gene delivery techniques already exist for getting a new gene—such as TRPA1—into the human heart,” Chalasani says. “If we can then use an external ultrasound device to activate those cells, that could really change pacemakers.” There is still a while to go before this treatment can become a reality. The future for sonogenetics, though, looks bright.

1. What’s working principle for sonogenetics?

A．Using medicine interventional therapies.

B．Changing cells’ shape with new equipment.

C．Controlling cells in a non-invasive manner.

D．Using a kind of unique medical composition.

2. What did the scientists do in the experiment?

A．Change the concentration of the protein.

B．Find target cells for treatment precisely.

C．Analyze the protein sensitive to the sign.

D．Choose the type of cell to be stimulated.

3. What can we learn about sonogenetics from Paragraphs 4 and 5?

A．It can be applied to other fields besides medicine.

B．It may replace some traditional medical therapies.

C．It will totally transform gene delivery techniques.

D．It has succeeded in curing diseases like blindness.

4. What’s the best title for the text?

A．Can cells be controlled by sound?

B．How is sonogenetics clinically used?

C．Are gene delivery techniques available?

D．What are applications of sonogenetics?

10 . Directions: After reading the passage below. fill in the blanks to make the passage coherent and grammatically correct. For the blanks with a given word, fill in each blank with the proper form of the given word: for the other blanks, use ONE word that best fits each blank.

Conquering the Scientific World, Dr. Roberto Crea

Although the scientists that brought a revolution into human life are no more, there remain a few who are following in their footsteps to find permanent solutions to persistent human life problems and add value, ease, and comfort to people’s lives.     1     fits the context perfectly is worth worshiping. And Dr. Roberto Crea is the one of them.

Born on July 1, 1948, in Italy, Roberto Crea was a genius kid.     2    (graduate) from the University of Pavia in Italy, he moved to the Netherlands for his specialization later on and finally enrolled at the University of Leiden, where he studied the synthesis of nucleorides (核苷酸), the basic units that are required to build a DNA.     3     he was immensely interested in and exceedingly curious about it, he was determined to specialize in the DNA/RNA synthesis by the phosphotriester method. Roberto’s strong chemistry background paved the way for a historical invention. And his marvelous research at the University spoke volumes.

With Genetech funding Dr. Crea’s on-going research on gene synthesis, Crea invented a new procedure that streamlined the chemical synthesis of oligonucleotides and synthetic genes. His profound knowledge, along with the collaboration of the excellent Genetech team, utilized this discovery to produce the human insulin genes. It was his invention that allowed Genentech     4    (label) as the first producer of human protein. This was made from therapeutic interest in bacteria for the benefit of hundreds of millions of people     5    (suffer) from diabetes all over the world.

His efforts did not cease     6     discovering the synthetic insulin(胰岛素); in fact, he was more than driven and strived to make more contributions to the field of biotechnology. In 1982, Roberto switched roles slightly to become a scientist entrepreneur and launched his company, Creative BioMolecules. This venture     7    (initial) functioned as a service company but later began producing therapeutic protein substances.

Another notable contribution to the medicine industry was the life-changing discovery of ziconotide, which     8    (take) place when Roberto served as the scientific director at Neurex. His team of experts in neuroscience discovered this drug under his teachings and guidance. According to leading scientists and researchers, this drug is more powerful and effective than morphine, a powerful drug used to reduce pain, and     9    (good) part of this is that it has zero side-effects.

Established as one of the greatest researchers and scientists America has ever known, Dr. Roberto Crea can be looked up to as an idol in Biotechnology and an inspiration for many individuals     10     dream of adding value to humanity with the help of science is deeply rooted.