1 . A new breakthrough in material science could revolutionize medical implants. Scientists at Southeast University in China have developed a piezoelectric material that is not only highly effective but also biodegradable. This innovation surpasses previous biodegradable options by a factor of 13 in terms of piezoelectric performance.

Piezoelectric materials have the unique ability to convert mechanical energy into electrical energy. This property makes them ideal for various medical implants, like pacemakers and drug delivery devices. However, traditional options lack biodegradability, necessitating a second surgery for removal after serving their purpose. This additional procedure can be expensive and carries inherent surgical risks.

The newly developed material, the discovery of which was led by Zhang Hanyue and Professor Xiong Rengen, is a kind of ferroelectric molecular crystal. The crystal offers the remarkable combination of both piezoelectricity and biodegradability. Notably, the material boasts a piezoelectric coefficient (d33) of approximately 138 picocoulombs per newton, a significant 13-fold increase compared to previous biodegradable materials.

Furthermore, the material is conveniently combined with polyvinyl alcohol (PVA), granting it high flexibility and biocompatibility within the body. This translates to safe implantation that can eventually dissolve naturally, eliminating the need for removal surgery.

The researchers envision this innovative material being utilized in a diverse range of next-generation medical implants. This research, published in the March 29 issue of Science magazine, represents a significant leap forward in the field of medical implants. Media outlets in China called the discovery a landmark breakthrough since the discovery of the piezoelectric effect by the Curie brothers in 1880.

1. What makes piezoelectric materials suitable for medical implants?

A．Their ability to convert electrical energy into mechanical energy.

B．Their biodegradability after serving their purpose.

C．Their unique ability to convert mechanical energy into electrical energy.

D．Their low cost and ease of availability.

2. The piezoelectric material is significant because it _____.

A．increases the piezoelectric coefficient by 13 times

B．is only suitable for pacemakers

C．requires a second surgery for removal

D．lacks flexibility and biocompatibility

3. The new material is combined with polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) to _____.

A．improve its piezoelectric performance

B．make it biodegradable

C．enhance its flexibility and biocompatibility

D．reduce its cost of production

4. Why it is considered a landmark breakthrough?

A．It was the first piezoelectric material to be developed

B．It surpasses previous biodegradable options significantly

C．It was discovered by Chinese scientists

D．It has been mentioned in Science magazine

2 . The Australian sand octopus (章鱼) was discovered in 1990 and is the only octopus species known to bury itself deep in the sand to hide from enemies. A team of researchers are studying the venom (毒液) of this kind of octopus. They have discovered that the venom may greatly slow cancer growth. And it can also help fight drug resistance in patients with a BRAF-changed skin cancer. BRAF is involved in managing cell growth. A change in it results in abnormal cell growth. These BRAF changes are seen in half of all cases of skin cancers.

“We and other groups have previously discovered that other animals-snakes, spiders, bees-have anticancer properties,” said Dr. Maria, the study’s lead author. “However, in my current knowledge, the anticancer properties of an octopus species have never been studied or confirmed before.”

Current treatments face a few challenges including low response rates, poisoning and side effects, as well as drug resistance. The octopus venom slows the growth of BRAF-changed skin cancer. More importantly, it is safe to be used in large quantities — it is not poisonous. Therefore, in combination with other drugs, the treatments could potentially achieve better and safer patient outcomes.

It is very unlikely that the octopus has specifically developed its venom to contain an anticancer substance. According to the researching team, the octopus venom contains over 1,000 unique substances with several functions such as reducing pain and anticancer.

“In this study, we have shown that the octopus venom specifically targets BRAF-changed skin cancer. The next step is to examine whether similar promising results are applicable for other BRAF-changed cancers.” said Dr. Maria. “Before it can be used on patients, the team will need to perform several rounds of lab testing and clinical trials to understand how it works and its full potential as a drug against skin cancer.”

1. What can we know about BRAF?

A．It is a change in cells.	B．It controls cell growth.
C．It can cause a deadly illness.	D．It helps to cure a skin cancer.

2. What discovery did the team make?

A．A medicine to cure cancers.	B．A substance contained in animals.
C．The medical value of octopus species.	D．The anticancer effect of an octopus venom.

3. What is an advantage of the octopus venom to treat the skin cancer?

A．It is of large quantity.	B．It has no side effects.
C．It is less expensive.	D．It has lower risks.

4. What can we infer from the last paragraph concerning the octopus venom?

A．Its application requires further work.

B．It helps treat BRAF-changed cancers.

C．Its safety needs more clinical testings.

D．It has already been put into wide use.

3 . 根据情景内容，在空白处填入1个适当的单词。
A: Good morning, Dr. Smith.
B: Good morning! What’s     1    ?
A: I have a headache, a running nose and a sore throat.
B: How     2     have you been like this?
A: Ever since last night.
B: Let me take your     3    . Oh, that’s bad. It’s 39℃. You have a high     4    .
A: What should I do?
B: You should drink plenty of water, and     5     the medicine three times a day. Be careful to keep warm.
A: All right. Thank you.

4 . 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.

5 . What was once science fiction is now a part of our everyday lives, as artificial intelligence (AI) is something that many of us live alongside. According to Statista, in 2019, 3.25 billion virtual assistants were used worldwide and that figure is predicted to be more than double by 2014.

AI is doing more for us than setting reminders, making recommendations, and offering us weather reports. In fact, it could be about to change the healthcare landscape entirely. It is estimated that one in eight people today use health apps regularly. And AI has more to offer.

Dr Emilia Molimpakis is a neuroscientist who co-founded thymia, a platform that uses AI powered games to help doctors spot depression.

“I was inspired to start thymia after seeing my best friend struggle with depression,” she says, “I saw her try to go through the psychiatric (精神病学的) system and fall through the cracks. Despite being seen by a psychiatrist, she ended up trying to take her own life. When that happened, I was the one who found her, and this experience impressed me.”

Aside from blaming herself for not recognizing the signs sooner, what she could not get her head around was how the psychiatrist should not see this coming. She realized that the tools psychiatrists used were still these old-fashioned, pen-and-paper questionnaires that have been found, time and again, to be subjective and not reflecting a patient’s actual mental health status. So, thymia was born.

But as we look into the future, what should we be aware of? Before we dive in head-first, there are still questions we need to answer. As Dr Molimpakis points out, it’s vitally important that AI tools used in healthcare must be trained on a diverse data set that is typical of all groups of people. It should also be used alongside, and in addition to, professional care—not as a replacement. We should also consider carefully how our health data is stored and used. These are topics that both users and professionals have a responsibility to consider.

1. Where is the text probably taken from?

A．An AI guide.	B．A research paper.
C．A health magazine	D．An encyclopedia.

2. What is the purpose of creating thymia?

A．To cure depression.	B．To train doctors.
C．To detect signs of illness.	D．To design questionnaires.

3. What do the underlined words “get her head around” mean in Paragraph 5?

A．Get over.

B．Figure out.

C．Make up.

D．Turn down.

4. What can we learn about the application of AI tools in the last paragraph?

A．It needs further improvement.

B．It was a double-edged sword.

C．It will develop into professional care.

D．It can make professionals more responsible.

6 . 阅读下面短文，在空白处填入1个适当的单词或括号内单词的正确形式。

As the saying goes, “Laughter is the best medicine.” In troubling times, good humour is in need more than ever. Doctors and medical staff are including it in     1     (they)care treatments. One product of this kind is the healthcare clown around the globe. There is even     2     organization that sets standards. The European Federation of Healthcare Clown Organizations     3     (found)in 2011. It says, “Healthcare clowns,     4     make contact through humour, bring moments of happiness to children and some adults with illness or special needs.”

After a COVID-19 ward opened in Jerusalem, one healthcare clown decided to help patients by     5     (use)her humour. She wanted to reduce the patients’     6     (anxious)and improve their health. She enjoyed working alongside doctors and said, “     7     (obvious), the doctors take care of the body and we come in and take care of the soul.”

Healthcare clowns are carefully chosen. Professional     8     (performer)have to receive special training before working with children in the healthcare environment. “I can see up close the effect the clowns have     9     sick children. I could not see a world without them. It’s necessary for the public     10     (realize)the role of healthcare clowns,” a doctor said.

7 . DNA testing is one of modern medicine’s most significant breakthroughs. Today, anyone can receive personalized information about their genes (基因) and ancestry with just a little saliva (唾液). Now, a Seattle-based company is working to bring equally deep analysis to the trillions of proteins within our bodies.

Nautilus Biotechnology, a company founded in 2016 by Seattle’s Sujal Patel and the San Francisco Bay Area’s Parag Mallick, is developing a device to identify and count 95% of the different types of proteins in a biological sample.

Human cells can contain roughly 20,000 different types of proteins, with crucial functions ranging from digestion to disease protection. Each cell has a varying amount of each protein. The company wants to measure the key machinery (机制) inside cells with a level of detail that has never been done before. Existing tools, it says. can only measure up to 8% of the different types of proteins in blood samples.

So why count proteins at all? Research shows healthy cells and diseased cells have differing amounts and forms of each protein. For example, cancer cells may have more of Protein A than Protein B. Knowing that might help in two ways: First, doctors could look for higher Protein A levels to detect cancer early. Second, researchers could better design drugs to target Protein A.

Nautilus says such protein measurements, which are unique to every person and change throughout people’s lives, will not only help doctors identify more specific forms of disease but also help pharmaceutical (制药) companies find more precise drugs with fewer side effects.

While other companies also are building new protein analysis machines, experts and prospective customers have expressed excitement over Nautilus’s approach. Mallick, chief scientist of Nautilus and the brain behind its technology, is confident: “It’s not every day when you get…to work on something. That’s the opportunity to change all of biology.”

1. What is the Seattle-based company doing?

A．Trying to count the amounts of blood cells.

B．Examining DNA for personalized information.

C．Developing a device to analyze people’s proteins.

D．Revealing more about our ancestry with DNA testing.

2. What makes the invention of the device possible?

A．Precise drugs are guaranteed.	B．Cell analysis techniques develop fast.
C．Proteins are much easier to be analyzed.	D．Protein amounts and forms vary from cell to cell.

3. In which area will the device be helpful?

A．Disease monitoring and machine design	B．Disease detection and drug development.
C．Disease prevention and targeted treatment.	D．Disease treatment and side effect prevention.

4. Which of the following is a suitable title for the text?

A．Combining DNA Testing with Protein Analysis	B．Setting a New Example of Medical Solution
C．Creating Opportunities for Changing Biology	D．Analyzing Proteins for New Medical Breakthrough

8 . “Doc, my wife’s breast cancer has come back and spread to her bones”. My friend’s eyes filled with tears when he spoke those chilling words. Like millions of other cancer patients, his wife had been treated successfully. Cancer recurrence is never a good sign, but it doesn’t mean you have to give up hope. Over the past decade, powerful new treatments have been developed to fight most stubborn cancers. Most, however, are still being tested in so-called clinical trials, and getting yourself enrolled in one takes some doing.

Clinical trials are research studies on human patients to test the safety and effectiveness of new treatments. There are hundreds of clinical cancer trials under way, involving thousands of patients. What most people don’t realize is that the scientists who conduct these studies need test subjects almost as badly as the subjects need treatment, and that lately the scientists have been running short of willing participants. At a conference on clinical trials held recently in Alexandria, Virginia, researchers trying to devise strategies for signing up more patients noted that one of the reasons there has been so much progress in treating pediatric(小儿科的)cancers in the US over the past 20 years is that 60% of all children with cancer are enrolled in some kind of trial. With adults, enrollment falls off dramatically, to only 2% to 3% of eligible patients.

Why is this? Partly it’s owing to patient misconceptions. “Patients are concerned if they enter a clinical trial that they may be part of the unlucky group that gets the placebo or ‘dummy treatment’ and not the real medicine,” says Dr. Bob Comis, president of the National Cancer Cooperative Groups. They think the placebo group get no treatment at all, when in act it gets whatever is considered the best current standard of care.

Cost shouldn’t be a consideration. Most clinical trials are free to patients; some even pay their subjects. Insurance companies in the past have been reluctant to cover the non-experimental part of the treatment, but they are starting to come around.

Now it is true that research scientists don’t always have the best bedside manner, and sometimes they unnecessarily keep patients in the dark. And the consent forms are often so encrusted with medical jargon that some patients joke.

1. What is the writer’s general attitude towards cancer recurrence?

A．Sympathetic

B．frustrated

C．optimistic

D．discouraged

2. What can we learn about clinical cancer trials?

A．Some clinical trials show that new treatments are safe and effective.

B．The scientists are lacking in cancer patients in their clinical trials.

C．There is much progress in treating adults with cancer in clinical trials.

D．Researchers have found ways of curing 60% of all children with cancer.

3. Which of the following is the closest in meaning to the underlined word “dummy” in Paragraph 3?

A．Fee and effective	B．harmless but ineffective
C．free and harmful	D．expensive but effective

4. Which of the following best summarizes the main idea of this passage?

A．Cancer patients in clinical trials enjoy the best current standard of care.

B．Why adults with cancer are unwilling to sign up for clinical trials.

C．Clinical cancer trials are under way, though with some problems.

D．Cancer recurrence is curable in clinical trials.

9 . Recently, my mother experienced a surgery. It was conducted to ________ a valve (心脏瓣膜) in her heart, which couldn’t function well. During the first couple of days, my dad was telling me on the phone how wonderful the nurses were in the ICU and how they ________ my mom. They did everything needed to make sure she was ________ at all times.

I told him it would be great if we could think of a(n) ________ way to show our thanks. In the whole process of ________ a major surgery, the nurses are often the people who get ________ the most and aren’t thanked enough for the care they give to each patient. My dad had a(n) ________ that we could bring along some chocolates for them. But I said it was too common.

When finally I arrived at the hospital, I had the ________ to meet these kind people, who my dad had told me had spent almost 36 hours caring for my mom ________ over the past 3 days! I came up with a good idea and I think they really ________ it.

When my mom recovered well and was ________ to leave the hospital, we handed them the silk banner (锦旗) I had been making for 2 days. They were all shocked and thanked us. But I said it was we that should ________ the wonderful care they provided to my mom.

Nurses really are the true ________ of the process of recovery. It was so nice that this ________ presented us with a unique chance to thank them directly for their ________ to others.

1.

A．repair

B．add

C．remove

D．shut

2.

A．met with

B．operated on

C．looked into

D．tended to

3.

A．active

B．pleased

C．comfortable

D．strong

4.

A．efficient

B．extra

C．special

D．exact

5.

A．appointing

B．performing

C．organizing

D．approving

6.

A．ignored

B．exhausted

C．recognized

D．prepared

7.

A．doubt

B．decision

C．agreement

D．idea

8.

A．attempt

B．chance

C．courage

D．luck

9.

A．considerately

B．frequently

C．occasionally

D．individually

10.

A．make

B．enjoy

C．need

D．deserve

11.

A．ordered

B．permitted

C．convinced

D．delayed

12.

A．witness

B．share

C．appreciate

D．understand

13.

A．monitors

B．heroes

C．providers

D．experts

14.

A．result

B．reality

C．difficulty

D．situation

15.

A．service

B．sacrifice

C．guidance

D．promise

10 . 阅读下面短文，在空白处填入1个适当的单词或括号内单词的正确形式。

Traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) is a health care system in which patients     1     (treat) with natural plant, animal, and mineral remedies (药物). It is assumed, for a person to be healthy,     2     yin and yang forces should he in balance. Imbalance causes illness or injury. TCM is about     3     (restore) the balance between yin and yang forces in patients. It has been a major part of traditional Chinese culture and continues to play     4     vital role in medical treatment in China today.

According to the World Health Organization, nearly 80 percent of the world's population depends for its primary health care needs    5     medicines from plants and animals. This is especially true in countries where traditional medicines are     6     (wide) used.

Increasingly, however, modern medicines also contain substances from animals and plants. Given growing populations, increasing wealth, and the spreading    7     (popular) of natural remedies around the world, the demand for these medicines and remedies     8     (rise) now. The rising demand,     9     (combine) with reduced habitat, has caused an alarming increase in the number of plant and animal species used for medicinal purposes at risk for many years. For instance, TCM uses about 1,000 plant and 36 animal species, including the tiger, rhinoceros, and sea horse,     10     are all in danger.