1 . In US emergency rooms (ER), the average wait time to see a doctor is more than two hours. There are more patients in need than there are doctors, nurses and other staff to help them. Many parents have suffered through hours in the ER with a sick, upset child, only to get sent home because their case is not considered urgent. What if there was another choice—like a house call from an intelligent machine?
Now, a new study shows that AI systems can assess a child’s medical chart and come up with a diagnosis, a determination of what is wrong with that patient.
The study took place at Guangzhou Women and Children’s Medical Center in southern China. First, a team of doctors reviewed 6, 183 medical charts. They summarized the information in these charts into a list of keywords linked to disease-related symptoms or signs, such as “fever”. Researchers then taught these keywords to the AI system. Once trained, the system scanned children’s charts for the key terms, checking if they were present or not in order to come to a conclusion. Finally, it offered diagnoses based on the charts, narrowing down from among 55 illness categories.
It agreed with real doctors about 90 percent of the time. It was especially effective at identifying illnesses of the ear, nose and throat. For these upper-respiratory infections, the Al system got it right 95 percent of the time.
Dongxiao Zhu, an assistant professor of computer science at Wayne State University who did not take part in the study, however, sees this as “augmented intelligence (增强智能)” rather than “artificial intelligence”, because the system handled only 55 illness categories. Compare that to thousands of possibilities in the real world. The machine cannot yet get into the more complex aspects of a medical decision.
Zhu is also concerned about the amount of human work that went into the study—namely, the time and energy spent by human doctors. They spent hours grading the machine’s assessments and comparing them to their own. It’s no wonder that the process took four years. Considering that, it may be a while before you can skip the ER and see a robot-doctor instead.
1. What can we infer from Paragraph 1?| A．Patients pay too much for the ER. |
| B．American doctors aren’t responsible. |
| C．Children are treated urgently in the ER. |
| D．The emergency rooms are crowded with patients. |
| A．AI systems still have a long way to go. |
| B．AI systems diagnose disease like doctors. |
| C．AI systems will take over from doctors someday. |
| D．AI systems get into complex medical decisions. |
| A．By examining a patient first. | B．By reviewing many medical charts. |
| C．By scanning keywords about a disease. | D．By observing disease-related symptoms. |
| A．Most of the medical judgments by the AI system are identical to doctors’. |
| B．The AI system trains the patients to assess their medical charts. |
| C．The AI system mainly focuses on the illnesses of the ear, nose and throat. |
| D．All of illnesses can be identified by the AI system. |
| A．They need to be improved a lot. | B．They will replace real doctors soon. |
| C．They are suitable for complex disease. | D．They help doctors make a quick analysis. |
2 . Being able to find high quality health care at an affordable price is a problem to be solved in many countries. In the United States, Walmart, a large chain store, is trying to help. It is offering something new to its employees: cutting the cost of a doctor’s appointment to only $4 instead of the usual $40 for the same service.
The catch is that the patient and doctor must meet over the internet. This online service is called “telemedicine.”
Walmart is the latest major business in the United States to push its workers toward a high-tech way to be examined and treated by doctors. Thanks to telemedicine, people can talk with medical experts from the privacy of their own homes, often using a secure video connection.
Supporters say online visits make it easier for patients to see an expert or quickly find help for problems considered non-emergencies.
Some healthcare needs are well-suited for telemedicine. It can help people seeking treatment for insect bites or skin conditions. Patients who have had medical treatments and cannot move around easily can use telemedicine for their follow-up visits. Also, people seeking help for mental health issues can benefit from the privacy that telemedicine gives.
But still, many people do not use telemedicine, they continue to go to the doctor’s office when they are sick. 80 percent of middle-size and large U.S. companies offered telemedicine services to their workers in 2018. However, only 8 percent of its employees used telemedicine at least once in 2017.
Compared with seeing a real doctor in person, some people may think the quality of telemedicine is not as good. Parents, for example, may feel they are not giving their child the best care if they use a virtual doctor appointment. Older adults may look forward to their in-person doctor appointments. For them, going to the doctor’s office is a big event, something they look forward to.
Another reason some adults may not use telemedicine services is trust. Tom Hill, aged 66, says he has no plans to ever use telemedicine. He does not buy anything online, let alone do something as personal as seeing a doctor. He says, for him, it is important to look his doctor in the eye and shake hands.
However, for some people, especially young people and busy students, telemedicine might be a good choice. It can cut down on the time away from work. It can also cut down on the cost of doctor visits.
1. What is Walmart trying to help with?| A．Finding something new for its employees. |
| B．Promoting the online service “telemedicine”. |
| C．Cutting the online cost of a doctor’s appointment. |
| D．Reducing the cost of seeing a doctor at a much lower price. |
| A．It enables patients to see doctors at home for free. |
| B．It has become increasingly popular in America. |
| C．It is the online service that is provided by most large US companies. |
| D．It makes it easier to see a doctor for emergency problems. |
| A．Because their company doesn’t provide telemedicine. |
| B．Because they don’t trust the doctors online. |
| C．Because they look forward to a virtual doctor appointment. |
| D．Because they have made friends with the doctors. |
| A．Jenny, a shy woman who suffers from mental illness. |
| B．Smith, a grandpa who has been bitten by a running dog. |
| C．Wilson, a worker who got seriously injured in a car accident. |
| D．Kate, a mother whose kid is suffering from a skin disease. |
| A．Positive. | B．Negative. | C．Objective. | D．Doubtful. |
3 . A T-shirt that constantly monitors the heart's activity and detects abnormalities could help protect people against stroke. The T-shirt, which can be washed up to 35 times before it needs replacing, has been developed to improve the detection of dangerous heart conditions like atrial fibrillation（心房颤动）,which causes an irregular heart rhythm and raises the risk of stroke.
At least one million people in Britain are known to have this condition; however, it's estimated that at least another 50（）, 000 have it but haven't yet been diagnosed because they have no obvious symptoms. Some will have symptoms such as chest pain, dizziness and fatigue； but a large number of people have no idea they're ill until they suffer a stroke.
Detecting atrial fibrillation involves carrying out an ECG（心电图）.Conventional ECGs are done in a hospital and involve highly trained teams of staff attaching up to 24 separate electrodes（电 极）to different parts of the body to measure electrical signals. But most patients experience abnormal rhythms only intermittently（间歇地）. This means the chance of picking them up during a short hospital check is slim.
Doctors sometimes issue patients with a device called a Holter monitor to wear under their clothes to try to pick up cardiac(心脏的）problems. This is an electronic box which clips onto your waistband and is connected to a series of electrodes worn on the upper part of your body. But the box itself is quite bulky, hard to hide beneath clothing and involves a dozen or more wires being attached to the patient's chest.
The Cardioskin T-shirt, which is made from cotton, could be a much more convenient alternative and can be worn 24 hours a day—meaning it is more likely to pick up any abnormal rhythms in the patients heart. It has 15 tiny electrodes woven into the material which are strategically placed around the chest area to track the electrical signals from the heart as they travel across the main part of your body.
The electrodes are powered by a battery which can be removed easily when you need to wash the T-shirt and feed results to a microchip which then sends them out wirelessly to an app. This converts（转换）the data into an easy-to-read chart showing if the heart rate is abnormal. The results are shared with the patient's doctor so they can check the patient's heart without having to call them into the hospital.
Martin Cowie, a professor of cardiology at Imperial College London, said, "Cardioskin could be an important development for cardiologists.”
1. How many British people are having dangerous heart conditions according to the text?| A．Less than 0.5 million. | B．Less than 1 million, |
| C．At least 1.5 million. | D．At least 2 million. |
| A．The difficulty in detecting atrial fibrillation. |
| B．The benefit of detecting atrial fibrillation. |
| C．The process of detecting atrial fibrillation. |
| D．The future of detecting atrial fibrillation. |
| A．To show the advantage of a Cardioskin T-shirt over it. |
| B．To introduce a way to check the patient’s heart. |
| C．To encourage people to care about their health. |
| D．To explain why doctors like using the device. |
| A．It has a battery that can be charged easily and quickly. |
| B．It can be worn a month without being washed. |
| C．It has electrodes placed all over the T-shirt. |
| D．It can make the process of diagnosis timely and convenient. |
| A．New ECG that could be an important development for doctors. |
| B．Hi-tech T-shirt that could help doctors spot risk of stroke. |
| C．Holter monitor that could track patients' heart problems. |
| D．Cardioskin T-shirt that could prevent patients from diseases. |
Therapy dogs are dogs that are trained to give comfort (安慰) and love to people in unfortunate situations. They are often used to help people in hospitals, retirement homes, schools and disaster areas. Whether or not a dog is suitable for this line of work is based on its personality. Because therapy dogs must work with many kinds of people, such as young children or the elderly, they must have patience.
During World War II, a soldier named William Wynne found a dog abandoned (遗弃) on the battlefield. He became friends with the dog and named it Smoky. When Wynne became ill and entered a hospital, his friends brought Smoky for a visit. Smoky became so popular with the other sick soldiers in the hospital that he was allowed to stay. The doctors in the hospital used Smoky to help cheer up the patients. After the war ended, he continued to work as a therapy dog in the United States.
In the 1970s, an American nurse named Elaine Smith started a program to train therapy dogs. Smith noticed that patients in hospitals seemed to get better faster when they were around dogs. Many other doctors and nurses noticed that having animals regularly visit hospitals helped lower stress and blood pressure among patients. In the 1980s and 1990s, other animals also started to help the sick. Cats, birds and rabbits have become “therapy pets” and they are now used in many hospitals around the world.
Today, therapy pets not only help injured soldiers, but also help children with reading disabilities by providing an audience that won't look down upon them. Some therapy pets are used to work along with the doctor to help the patient learn to walk again after a serious injury.
1. What dogs are most suitable to be therapy dogs? (No more than 5 words)2. Why was Smoky allowed to stay in the hospital? (No more than 10 words)
3. What encouraged Elaine Smith to train and use therapy dogs? (No more than 8 words)
4. What does the underlined word ''therapy'' mean? (No more than 1 words)
5. What can we learn from the last paragraph? (No more than 15 words)
5 . Jenny was driving her six-year-old son, Tony, to his piano lesson. They were late, and Jenny was beginning to think she should have given it up. There was always so much to do, and Jenny recently helped with an operation. She was tired. The storm and ice roads added to her tension. Maybe she should turn the car around.
“Mom!” Tony cried. “Look!” Just ahead a car had lost control on the patch of ice. As Jenny tapped the brakes, the other car wildly rolled over; then crashed sideways into a telephone pole.
Jenny pulled over, stopped and threw open her door. Thank goodness she knew her job well—she might be able to help these unfortunate passengers. Then she paused. What about Tony? She couldn’t take him with her. Little boys shouldn’t see scenes like that. But was it safe to leave him alone? What if their car were hit from behind? For a brief moment Jenny considered going on her way.
She asked Tony to stay in the car and ran, slipping and sliding, toward the crash site. It was worse than she’s feared. Two girls of high school age in the car. One was killed. The driver, however, was still breathing. Jenny quickly applied pressure to the wound in the teenager’s head while her practiced eye checked the other injuries. A broken leg, maybe two, along with probable internal bleeding. But if help came soon, the girl would live.
A trucker had pulled up and was calling for help on his cellphone. Soon ambulance and rescue workers came. “Good job,” one said while examining the wounds. “You probably saved her life!” Later the families of the victims came to meet Jenny, expressing their gratitude for the help she had offered.
1. What was Jenny doing when the accident happened?| A．She was helping with an operation. |
| B．She was driving for her son’s lesson. |
| C．She was driving home with her son. |
| D．She was making a telephone for help. |
| A．A taxi-driver. | B．A firefighter. |
| C．A nurse. | D．A teacher. |
| A．the tiredness of the driver |
| B．the truck who was telephoning while driving |
| C．the students’ careless driving |
| D．the bad weather and terrible road conditions |
| A．her poor skills of saving people |
| B．her little son’s safety in the car |
| C．her little son’s piano lesson |
| D．the students killed in the accident |
| A．the driver was saved thanks to Jenny’s timely help |
| B．there were at least two deaths in the car accident |
| C．Jenny was to blame for the terrible car accident |
| D．Jenny was late for his piano lessons for this accident |
