1 . Artificial intelligence is almost twice as accurate as a biopsy (活组织检查) at judging the aggressiveness of some cancers, experts say. Cancer kills 10 million people globally every year, according to the WHO. But for patients the disease can be prevented if detected instantly and dealt with quickly.

A recent study suggested an AI algorithm (算法) was far better than a biopsy at correctly grading the aggressiveness of sarcomas (肉瘤), a rare form of cancer. Researchers hope AI will improve outcomes for patients by giving doctors a more accurate way of grading tumours (肿瘤). Because high-grade tumours can indicate aggressive disease, the tool could help ensure those high-risk patients are identified more quickly and treated instantly. Low-risk patients could also be spared unnecessary treatments, follow-up scans and hospital visits.

Researchers say the algorithm could be applied to other types of cancer in future. The team specifically looked at retroperitoneal sarcomas, which develop at the back of the abdomen and are difficult to diagnose (诊断) and treat due to their location. They used CT scans from 170 patients with the two most common forms of retroperitoneal sarcoma — leiomyosarcoma and liposarcoma. Using data from these scans they created an AI algorithm, which was then tested on 89 patients in other countries. In grading how aggressive the tumour was, the technology was accurate in 82% of the cases, while biopsies were 44%.

AI could also recognize leiomyosarcoma and liposarcoma in 84% of sarcomas tested, while radiologists were able to identify them in 65% of the cases. Christina Messiou, the study leader, said: “We’re incredibly excited by the potential of this state-of-the-art technology, which could lead to patients having better outcomes through faster diagnosis. As patients with retroperitoneal sarcoma are routinely scanned with CT, we hope this tool will eventually be used globally, ensuring that not just specialist centres can reliably identify and grade the disease.”

Richard Davison, chief executive of Sarcoma UK, said the results looked “very promising”. He added: “People are more likely to survive sarcoma if diagnosed early. One in six people with sarcoma cancer wait more than a year to receive an accurate diagnosis, so any research that helps patients receive better treatment and support is welcome.”

1. According to the passage, AI is capable of        .

A．grading the risk of sarcomas

B．measuring the scale of sarcomas

C．providing cancer treatment for clinicians

D．classifying cancers with its advanced algorithm

2. What can be inferred from this passage?

A．More sarcomas can be detected with the help of AI.

B．Biopsies will be replaced by AI algorithm in identifying cancers.

C．More patients suffering from cancers will benefit from AI algorithm.

D．AI algorithm has been applied in hospitals for detecting most cancers.

3. What is the passage mainly about?

A．AI has a profound market in curing cancers.

B．New treatments for sarcomas are well underway.

C．AI helps identify high-risk and low-risk patients.

D．AI does better in assessing some types of sarcomas.

2 . “Your mother needs a new heart,” my father told me when I called on that December afternoon. An unrelenting optimist, he spoke as if she merely needed to have a part replaced. But, although my two sisters and I knew that our mother had heart problems, this news still made us frozen for a while with our eyes widening in disbelief.

Dr. Marc Semigran of the transplant team reviewed my mother’s medical history. She’d had an irregular and rapid heartbeat for most of her life. Her present treatment — the use of a series of cardioversions, or electric jolts, to restore a normal heartbeat — would not work in the long-term. She had an enlarged and weakened heart, as well as a faulty valve.

“With medication,” Dr. Semigran said, “you have a 60 percent chance of living six months. You could have a longer life with a transplant, but there are risks. You’re at the top end of the age group of sixty years old. The lungs and other organs must be healthy and strong. While the transplant surgery is actually a straightforward procedure, acceptance by the body is the difficult thing.”

My family came together, trying to provide strength and work out what to do. We’d already gone from shock, over our mother’s condition, to worry that she wouldn’t be a suitable recipient. Despite of the risk, we chose to believe that she would make it eventually.

Word came later in December that she had been accepted into the programme. Dr. Jeremy Ruskin told us one of the reasons she had been accepted was that she had such strong family support.

One Monday in May, at about 8 p. m., my mother received a phone call from the hospital that a heart was available. As she was about to be wheeled off, my father took her face in his hands and looked into her eyes. His look said everything about their 42-year relationship.

The heart transplant operation was successful and the conditions could not have been better.

The irony of the transplant process is that one family’s loss is another’s gain; that tragedy begets fortune. It is a kind of life after death, our hearts beating beyond us. We developed a feeling of love for this new part, of gratitude for the doctors, for the process, and for those people who made a decision just for humanity.

1. How did the sisters feel to the news that their mother needed a new heart?

A．Frightened.

B．Astonished.

C．Worried.

D．Annoyed.

2. Which is the factor to affect the possibility of their mother’s heart transplant?

A．Her abnormal heart beat.

B．The age of over sixty years old.

C．Her willingness to the transplant.

D．The adaptation of the new heart in the body.

3. What made the transplant team decide to have the operation?

A．That her lungs were healthy.

B．That a new heart had been found.

C．That her family were expecting the operation.

D．That her family trusted the doctors' medical level.

4. What can we learn from the passage?

A．Family support is of great importance.

B．Fortune favors those who are optimistic.

C．Confidence helps patients overcome difficulties.

D．Getting prepared before accepting a treatment matters.

3 . When patients are discharged (出院) from the hospital, effective summaries from doctors’ notes are essential to capture their health status in the medical record. Whereas, most are filled with technical languages that are hard to understand and increase patients’ anxiety.

To address the problem, researchers from New York University (NYU) Langone Health have been testing the capabilities of generative artificial intelligence (AI). It tries to develop likely options for the next word in any sentence based on how most people use words in context on the Internet.

NYU Langone Health received access to the latest tool from a famous tech company to explore generative AI. One of the studies by the researchers published in JAMA Network Open, looked at how well the tool could convert (转换) the text in 50 patient discharge notes into patient-friendly language. Specifically, generative AI made the discharge notes drop from 11th-grade reading level on average to a 6th-grade level.

Two physicians were asked to review the AI discharge summary based on a 6th-grade level. The reviewing physicians awarded 54 percent of the AI-generated discharge notes the best-possible accuracy rating. They also found that 56 percent of notes created by AI were entirely complete. The result signified that even at the current performance level, providers of discharge notes would not have to make a single change in more than half of the AI summaries reviewed.

“That more than half of the AI reports generated are accurate and complete is an amazing start,” said Jonah Zaretsky, associate chief of medicine at NYU Langone Hospital — Brooklyn. “Even at the current level of performance, which we expect to improve shortly, the achievement of the AI tool suggests that it can be taught to recognize subtleties (微妙之处).”

Within the following years, the team expects to launch a pilot program to provide lay language discharge summaries that have been generated by AI and reviewed by physicians to patients on a larger scale.

1. What is generative AI used for by the researchers?

A．Submitting discharge summaries.	B．Accessing patients’ health status.
C．Making discharge notes clear to patients.	D．Offering technical languages to doctors.

2. What is generative AI’s function based on?

A．Probable predicting.	B．Actual thinking.
C．Free imagining.	D．Strict instructing.

3. Why were the two physicians asked to review the AI discharge summaries?

A．To correct their mistakes.	B．To measure their accuracy.
C．To compete with the AI tool.	D．To make up the missing parts.

4. How did Jonah Zaretsky find the performance of AI in dealing with discharge summaries?

A．Misleading.

B．Dismissive.

C．Challenging.

D．Promising.

4 . This is Your Dream Dance

With growing evidence that dancing helps boost brain health and manage symptoms of neurocognitive (神经认知的) and movement disorders, accessible dance programmes and movement therapists are helping improve the lives of millions.     1    .

● Dance as brain movement

There’s actually a lot more happening inside the brain when trying to follow even the simplest choreography (舞蹈编排). “In dance class, we have to learn patterns, and remember sequences,” says David Leventhal, a programme director. The effect extends beyond the dance class to the real world.     2    .

●    3    

In addition to the physical and neurological benefits, dance can also help people living with disease make out what their bodies can and can’t do. Rather than trying to control, or “fix” our body, dance is about developing greater body awareness and moving at our capacity, regardless of physical or cognitive difference.

● Dance as community

    4    . Dancing with others not only makes people feel less different in their abilities when dealing with neurological and movement disorders, it also helps to combat the loneliness and social isolation of living with a chronic illness.

Still, researchers say they’re only scratching the surface of understanding how dance can be used therapeutically.     5    . Researchers are also trying to find out the most effective types of dance movements and the optimal length and frequency of classes.

A．Dance as body acceptance

B．Dance as physical exercise

C．The uniqueness of dance as a therapy lies in the following aspects

D．Dancing requires more “brain power” than simpler repetitive exercises

E．Perhaps one of the biggest benefits of dance is the sense of belonging it creates

F．Larger studies are needed to confirm the findings of the smaller trials that have been done

G．Tasks like navigating the kitchen or walking to the bus stop can be more attainable after dancing

5 . A cure for the future in the past?

For over fifty years, the people of Britain have relied on the welfare state to make sure they have adequate health services. But now the National Health Service is sick. Government _____ and underfunding are forcing hospitals to close, and waiting lists for treatment are getting longer. Under such circumstances, it is no surprise that more people are turning to private (but expensive) healthcare.

For some, however, there are _____. They are turning their back on modern pills, tablets and resorting to other conventional medicine. It seems paradoxical, but in an age of microchips and high technology, traditional medicine, the old-fashioned cures that our grandparents relied on, is making a _____.

Consider these case studies:

Maude is 76 years old and has been suffering from arthritis for almost ten years. “The pain in my joints was almost _____, and my doctor referred me to a surgeon at the London Hospital. I was told that I needed _____, but would need to wait for at least two years before I could have the operation. In _____, I started having massage sessions. To my surprise, these were very therapeutic, and while they didn’t cure the disorder, they did _____ it to some extent”.

Ron is 46. His high-powered city job was _____ for a series of stress-related illnesses, and the drugs he took didn’t work well on the nervous strain. “I read about _____ which involve the whole person rather than the individual symptoms, but I had always doubted about such kind of medicine for all diseases. However, my friend _____ a dietician who told me that part of my problem was diet-related. Basically, the food I was eating was _____ to my disorder. She gave me a list of foods that would provide the right vitamins and minerals to keep me in good health. At the same time, she advocated a more _____ lifestyle-running, swimming, that kind of thing. I’ m a bit of a couch potato, and this kind of lifestyle I had lived was _____ the problem. Now I feel great!”

So is there still a place in our lives for modern medicine? While it is true that some infections and viruses may be _____ by turning to traditional medicine, more serious illnesses such as cancer need more extreme measures. We do need our health service at these times, and we shouldn’t stop _____ in its future. But we mustn’t forget that for some common illnesses, the cure may lie in the past.

1.

A．support

B．restrictions

C．cutbacks

D．concern

2.

A．programs

B．alternatives

C．measures

D．scales

3.

A．comeback

B．living

C．change

D．mess

4.

A．unique

B．uncertain

C．universal

D．unbearable

5.

A．permission

B．surgery

C．supervision

D．strength

6.

A．condition

B．desperation

C．general

D．particular

7.

A．protect

B．recover

C．relieve

D．treat

8.

A．eager

B．grateful

C．famous

D．responsible

9.

A．treatments

B．sources

C．spirits

D．comments

10.

A．supervised

B．declared

C．recommended

D．tempted

11.

A．contributing

B．adapting

C．subjecting

D．objecting

12.

A．moderate

B．active

C．negative

D．suitable

13.

A．identifying

B．investigating

C．estimating

D．worsening

14.

A．prevented

B．empowered

C．indicated

D．restored

15.

A．undertaking

B．invading

C．investing

D．evolving

8 . 听下面一段较长对话，回答以下小题。
1. What did the speakers do last week?

A．They sent the Smiths to hospital.

B．They visited the Smiths’ daughter.

C．They expressed thanks to the Smiths.

2. Where is Lily now probably?

A．At the hospital.

B．At school.

C．At home.