1 . Medicine is not exclusively a human invention. Many other animals, from insects to birds to nonhuman primates, have been known to self-medicate with plants and minerals for infections and other conditions.
Behavioral ecologist Helen Morrogh-Bernard of the Borneo Nature Foundation has spent decades studying the island’s orangutans (猩猩) and says she has now found evidence they use plants in a previously unseen medicinal way.
During more than 20, 000 hours of formal observation, Morrogh-Bernard and her colleagues watched 10 orangutans occasionally chew a particular plant (which is not part of their normal diet) into a foamy lather (泡沫) and then rub it into their fur. The apes spent up to 45 minutes at a time massaging the mixture onto their upper arms or legs. The researchers believe this behavior is the first known example of a nonhuman animal using a topical painkiller.
Local people use the same plant Dracaena cantleyi, an unremarkable-looking plant with stalked leaves-to treat aches and pains. Morrogh-Bernard’s co-authors studied its chemistry. They added extracts (提出物) from the plant to human cells that had been grown in a dish and had been artificially stimulated to produce cytokines, an immune system response that causes inflammation (炎症) and discomfort. The plant extract reduced the production of several types of cytokines, the scientists reported the finding in a study published last November in Scientific Reports.
The results suggest that orangutans use the plant to reduce inflammation and treat pam. Such findings could help identify plants and chemicals that might be useful for human medications.
In creatures such as insects, the ability to self-medicate is almost certainly innate: woolly bear caterpillars infected with flies seek out and eat plant substances that are poisonous to the flies. But more complex animals may learn such tricks after an initial discovery by one member of their group.
For example, an orangutan may have rubbed the plant on its skin to try to treat parasites and realized that it also had a pleasant pain-killing effect. That behavior may then have been passed on to other orangutans. Because this type of-self-medication is seen only in south-central Borneo, Morrogh-Bernard says, it was probably learned locally.
1. What do we know about Dracaena cantleyi?| A．It can serve as a pain killer. | B．It is orangutans normal diet. |
| C．It is a plant with a foamy lather. | D．L can function as building materials. |
| A．By studying the plant’s chemistry. | B．By observing apes eating the plant. |
| C．By extracting cytokines from the plant. | D．By watching local people using the plant. |
| A．Botanists can better understand plants. |
| B．Scientists can find a new way to study apes. |
| C．Doctors may have the power to cure more diseases. |
| D．Drug companies may find new materials for medicine. |
| A．Medicine is a human unique invention. | B．Plant extracts are the best to treat-pain. |
| C．Humans and animals have a lot in common. | D．Insects have the natural ability to self medication. |
2 . Growing up in a small village in Ghana, Osei Boateng watched many of his family members and neighbors struggle to access basic health care. In many regions of the country, it can take hours to get to the nearest hospital. “My grandmother was a very big part of my life,” said Boateng. “It was very hard when we lost her, and it was due to something that could have been easily prevented. That is the painful part of it.”
Feeling an urgent call to help, Boateng decided he would make it his life’s mission to bring health care to remote communities in Ghana. He started his nonprofit, OKB Hope Foundation, and in 2021, he converted a van into a mobile doctor’s office called the Hope Health Van and started bringing health care directly to those in need. A few times a week, the mobile clinic and medical team travel long distances to remote communities in Ghana and provide routine medical care for free. On each trip, Boateng’s team consists of a nurse, a physician’s assistant, a doctor, and an operation assistant. In the van, they can run basic labs like bloodwork and urinalysis as well as prescribe and provide medications.
Since its launch, Boateng says the Hope Health Van has served more than 4,000 Ghanaians across more than 45 rural communities who otherwise don’t have easily accessible medical care.
Boateng has big plans for the future. He hopes to expand to provide more consistent and high-quality medical care not only to those living in remote areas of Ghana but in other countries as well. He has gone all in on his OKB Hope Foundation, recently quitting his job to dedicate his time to bringing health care to his home country. But for him, the sacrifices are well worth the reward.
1. What is the function of Paragraph 1?| A．To introduce the topic of the passage. | B．To confirm an idea. |
| C．To conclude the text. | D．To express some doubts. |
| A．Routine medical checks. | B．Minor operations. |
| C．Mental therapy. | D．Prescribed medicine. |
| A．Cooperative and persistent. | B．Selfless and modest. |
| C．Strong-willed and tolerant. | D．Dedicated and ambitious. |
| A．Empowering medical schools | B．Doctor’s office on wheels |
| C．Nonprofit organizations booming in Ghana. | D．Hopeless health care in Ghana |
3 . Amblyopia is the most common cause of vision loss in children. In all cases of amblyopia, there’s a stronger eye and a weaker eye, and it’s winner-take-all in the cortex (大脑皮层). The cortex learns to ignore the signal from the weaker eye. By ignoring the weaker eye, the brain doesn’t fuse (融合) images from both eyes. As a result, people with amblyopia can have trouble seeing in 3D.
In an attempt to solve this problem, doctors start treating patients with amblyopia at a young age, while their brain pathways are still developing. The children, usually under 7 years old, are often told to wear an eye patch over their strong eye to force the brain to rely on the weaker. But whenever the eye patch is removed, the competition can start over. For lasting improvement, new treatments need to teach the brain to stop suppressing (抑制) key visual cues coming from the weaker eye, says neuroscientist Dennis Levi of the University of California.
Now, several research teams are taking a new way that aims to get the brain to make better use of the information coming from both eyes, Several companies are working on treatments based on this new angle. One is called Luminopia.
Luminopia’s therapy involves having children watch videos through a virtual reality headset. As the children watch, the headset blocks out certain parts of the display for each eye, so the patients actually have to combine input from the two images to get the full video.
The company conducted a trial showing that children with amblyopia begin to see better on eye chart assessments after three months of one-hour sessions done six days a week, But they have yet to measure improvements in long-term effectiveness. It is believed that if people with amblyopia don’t learn to fuse signals from both eyes from a young age, they never will. So some scientists think attempting to treat adults, whose brains have suppressed signals from their weak eye for decades, is a lost cause.
1. Why does a person with amblyopia have trouble seeing in 3D?| A．His brain is unable to receive images. |
| B．His cortex overlooks signals from the weaker eye. |
| C．His stronger eye can’t send signals to the brain. |
| D．His weaker eye fails to receive signals. |
| A．Ineffective. | B．Temporary. |
| C．Wonderful. | D．Comprehensive. |
| A．Activating the weak eye to get the full video. |
| B．Forcing the brain to rely on the weaker eye. |
| C．Improving the situations with eye chart assessments. |
| D．Blocking out the images received from the stronger eye. |
| A．It has an instant effect. | B．Adults are is main targets. |
| C．More trials need to be conducted. | D．It has long-term effectiveness. |
4 . A school science project by a group of students in Canada has led to an important discovery: EpiPens, which help control dangerous allergic (过敏的) reactions, might not work in space.
An EpiPen is a shot that puts a medicine called “epinephrine (肾上腺素)” straight into a person’s body with a needle. The epinephrine calms the allergic reaction so the person can breathe.
But students in the Programme for Gifted Learners had a question about EpiPens: Would they work in space? The students knew that on Earth, radiation from the sun can change the molecules (分子) of the epinephrine in an EpiPen. They wondered if the same thing would happen when epinephrine was exposed to radiation in space. So the students designed an experiment to test their idea. They wanted to send samples of the liquid in an EpiPen, as well as pure epinephrine, into space to see if anything changed.
Working with a group called iEDU, which offers a programme called Cubes in Space, the students sent two cubes into space — one on a rocket and the other on a balloon. Each cube held a bottle of pure epinephrine and a bottle of EpiPen liquid.
After the cubes returned to Earth, Dr. Mayer tested the liquids in the bottles once more. The results suggested that the students had discovered something big. The bottles that held the EpiPen liquid now had no epinephrine at all. The results from the bottles of pure epinephrine were even more surprising. Only 87% of the liquid was still epinephrine. The other 13% had turned into poisonous chemicals.
The discovery the students made is a big deal. It suggests that EpiPens might not work in space, and might even become dangerous. That’s important information for astronauts with allergies. The students now hope to repeat their experiment a second time, to check their results. They are also working on designing a container that could protect epinephrine in space.
1. What are EpiPens used to do?| A．Help astronauts breathe properly in space. | B．Aid in solving anything urgent in space. |
| C．Avoid exposing astronauts to radiation. | D．Contribute to managing severe allergic reactions. |
| A．To test whether epinephrine changes in space. |
| B．To test the purity of epinephrine in space. |
| C．To test the difference of radiation on Earth and in space. |
| D．To test the disadvantages of epinephrine. |
| A．Astronauts who have some allergies. |
| B．Chemistry teachers in the middle school. |
| C．People who have allergic symptoms in their bodies. |
| D．Experts doing research about space in the lab. |
| A．What Is EpiPen and What Does It Do? | B．Kids Discover Poisonous EpiPen in Space |
| C．Student Scientists Study the EpiPen in Space | D．Useful in Space? A Funny EpiPen Project |
5 . Drugs that could save tens of thousands of lives in Britain should be prescribed (开药) to three times as many patients as at present, medical experts recommended after a study showed these drugs have great effects on heart disease and stroke (中风).
British research has shown that statins, a class of drug that lowers cholesterol (胆固醇), can prevent a third of all cases of heart disease or stroke in patients at highest risk. If statins were given to 10 million high-risk patients, they could save at least 50,000 lives a year worldwide. In Britain, where heart disease is the leading cause of death, statins could save up to 10,000 lives a year.
Studies have found that safety issues surrounding statins were so tiny that they were significant. The risk of muscle problems was only about one in ten thousand. Fears that statins could increase deaths from other diseases, such as cancer, were assuaged by the study. At present, only people with high cholesterol are prescribed statins, but the eight-year study found that anyone at risk of heart disease or stroke could benefit. Statins are now given to fewer than one in twenty people aged over 40, mostly men with heart disease or high cholesterol. Under the recommendation, this would increase to one in eight.
A total of 20,000 volunteers aged 40 to 80 took part in the study, which looked at the effects of statins on patients for whom the benefits were uncertain. The guidelines previously said that female patients aged over 65 would not benefit from the drug, but the five years of monitoring all types of patients at high risk of heart attacks and stroke showed that everyone benefited as much from statins. The new recommendations will be easy to put into practice because statins are readily available and the patients who benefit from them most are already known to doctors.
1. What does paragraph 2 focus on?| A．Main diseases in Britain. | B．Side effects caused by statins. |
| C．Positive effects of statins. | D．The numbers of heart disease cases. |
| A．Eased. | B．Discovered. | C．Ignored. | D．Compared. |
| A．The effects of the drug are unclear. | B．The drug can be widely prescribed. |
| C．The drug hardly benefits female patients. | D．The drug should be limited in application. |
| A．To call for the monitoring of drug studies. | B．To explain different ways of testing drugs. |
| C．To seek improvement in the drug research. | D．To spread medical experts’ recommendation. |
6 . For some of us, going to the dentist for routine check-ups is a thing of the ordinary. But for many people around the world, especially those in impoverished (贫困的) areas, having dental improvement and their teeth checked simply isn’t possible. A Brazilian dentist Felipe Rossi has devoted himself to helping changing that situation.
Growing up in USA, Felipe Rossi had just obtained the Bachelor of Medicine Degree and was about to start a master’s degree in Pediatric Dentistry (儿童口腔学) when a journey to his father’s home — Balsabo in Brazil — converted his initial plan. “All locals didn’t have access to dental care, and consequently, many of them suffered deformed teeth or even loss of teeth, leading to many people not daring to laugh with mouth open.” Felipe Rossi recalled. “A desire was planted in my heart. That is, to use my skills to bring healthy smiles to people suffering from dental problems.”
With the support of his parents, Felipe formed an NGO (non-government organization) called Porsorriso to give free oral treatments to individuals with low incomes who require cleaning. fillings, crowns, restoration work and more. His team is composed of approximately 30 registered volunteers who go with him to poor towns and villages in Brazil.
Sponsorship is generally provided by two private companies. Individuals may also make donations through the ‘Smile Solidarity’ program, where they can choose monthly amounts to contribute. Porsorriso also holds regular fundraisers to afford the cost of providing free dental services around the country.
As noble as its objective is, Felipe admits that Porsorriso is “struggling to survive” because of the huge cost of providing dental work and the constant fundraising events they have to hold to keep the NGO in normal functioning. “Challenging as it is, it did bring healthy teeth as well as renewed confidence to the locals. We will continue this transformative act whatever difficulties we will face”. Felipe said with a strong will.
1. How does the author introduce the topic of the text?| A．By posing a contrast. |
| B．By reporting an event. |
| C．By assuming a situation. |
| D．By making an appeal. |
| A．The support from his parents. |
| B．The passion for dental health. |
| C．The encounter with local s lacking dental care. |
| D．The professional skills and knowledge from college. |
| A．Hopeful and diligent. |
| B．Faithful and ambitious. |
| C．Intelligent and creative. |
| D．Charitable and dedicated. |
| A．It gives free oral treatments to anyone in need. |
| B．It is cooperated by Felipe Rossi and the local authority. |
| C．It is financially supported by corporations and individuals. |
| D．It holds regular fundraisers to educate people about dental care. |
7 . Medical Examination Instructions
These medical instructions are being issued as your immigration (移民) application has reached the stage where medical examination results are required.
When, who and how to complete your Immigration Medical Examination
You are required to have the medical examination within 30 days of the date of this letter; your medical examination must be performed by a doctor from the IRCC list of Panel Physicians; book an appointment with a Panel Physician in your area as soon as possible.
Once your medical examination has been completed, the Panel Physician will submit medical results to IRCC for assessment. To obtain a copy of your Immigration Medical Examination, please ask the Panel Physician at the time of your appointment.
Paying for your Immigration Medical Examination
Any costs related to the medical examination are your responsibility and are payable to the Panel Physician at the time of examination. This payment is for the Panel Physician's services and cannot be returned even if your immigration application is refused or the validity period (有效期) of your immigration medical examination ends.
Note: If you are qualified for coverage under the Interim Federal Health Program, the costs related to your immigration medical examination may be covered by the IFHP. Please confirm with the Panel Physician in your area that they are registered with the IFHP.
What must I bring to my appointment?
★ The attached Medical Report form
★Identification, including your passport if one is available (Proof of identity must include at least one government-issued document with photograph and signature, such as a passport.)
★Eye glasses or contact lenses (隐形眼镜), if worn
★Four recent photographs
★For individuals qualified for Migration Medical Examination coverage under the Interim Federal Health Program, please bring one of the following documents:
●Refugee Protection Claimant Document
●The Interim Federal Health Certificate
●Acknowledgement of Claim and Notice to Return for Interview
If available, you may be offered vaccinations (接种疫苗) by the Panel Physician.
1. After your medical examination, _________.| A．the previous health reports ought to be consulted |
| B．you will submit the results to IRCC for assessment |
| C．the Panel Physician will present the results to IRCC |
| D．you will surely obtain a copy of examination results by the physician |
| A．The IFHP will cover them. | B．They cannot be returned. |
| C．The Panel Physician will pay in cash. | D．They will be returned if you apply. |
| A．Proof of identity. | B．The Federal Health Certificate. |
| C．The application form. | D．Medical examination instructions. |
8 . Late last month a team of researchers at the University of Maryland School of Medicine transplanted a genetically modified pig heart into a person — the second such surgery ever attempted — and it has kept him alive for the past few weeks.
The patient, 58-year-old Lawrence Faucette, underwent the highly experimental procedure under a “compassionate use” pathway, in which the U.S. Food and Drug Administration permits an unapproved therapy when a person is seriously ill or dying and has no other options available. Faucette was not eligible for a conventional human heart transplant because he had peripheral vascular disease and other complications, which narrowed the outlook for success.
By mid-October, Faucette was continuing to recover. “He’s had a rough time,” however, Bartley Griffith, a surgeon who performed Faucette’s procedure as well as the previous one, said at that time. According to Griffith, Faucette was living at home when the FDA first approved the surgery, but he was subsequently hospitalized with fluid in his lungs. Then he suffered a cardiac arrest the night before the surgery. Still, he had so far responded well to the transplant.
More than 100,000 people are waiting for an organ transplant, so researchers have long been exploring xenotransplantation (异种器官移植): transplanting other species’ organs into humans. To prevent the human immune system from attacking these alien organs, scientists have begun to breed genetically modified donor pigs that lack certain genes or have other genes added.
In the past couple of years, pig xenotransplants have been tested in both nonhuman primates and deceased humans — but the ultimate goal is to conduct human clinical trials on a bigger scale. The results of the recent compassionate use transplant will likely influence the FDA’s consideration of whether and when to allow such trials to take place. Many researchers hope this could happen in the next year or two.
“We took a pretty good swing at the ball the first time, and we got very close to a prolonged success, we think,” Griffith says. Although there were some unforeseen circumstances in that first xenotransplant, his team and others have developed better methods to test for these conditions.
1. Why did Faucette undergo the pig-to-human heart transplant?| A．Because he was seriously ill and there was no better options. |
| B．Because the pig heart fits well in human body. |
| C．Because FDA has long approved such transplant. |
| D．Because the surgery has been applied in medical treatment already. |
| A．Faucette highly praises the surgery. |
| B．Faucette responds well to the alien organ. |
| C．Faucette has suffered a lot after the transplant. |
| D．Faucette experienced cardic arrest after the surgery. |
| A．The FDA is taking great care on human clinical trials. |
| B．The patients will receive the best of care after the transplant. |
| C．The human immune system is greatly changed before the transplant. |
| D．Scientists modified the donor pig’s genes or added other genes before breeding it. |
| A．Skeptical. | B．Neutral. | C．Supportive. | D．Indifferent. |
9 . As a senior resident, I often distributed poems to my team, printing and posting them above the computers in our hospital workrooms. Once, during a rare quiet moment in the ICU, with permission from my colleagues (同事), I read a couple of poems out loud. I remember watching my colleagues’ eyes close and their bodies visibly relax as the words washed over them.
Since then, I have shared poems — my own and others’ — in talks at my institution and across the country. I’ve also led other healthcare providers in creative writing exercises during workshops, lectures and classes. Many institutions host book clubs, story slams, film screenings and other opportunities for medical learners to engage with the humanities (人文学科).
While poetry can be frightening to some, many contemporary poems provide approachable emotional experiences. Pieces like Safiya Sinclair’s “Notes on the State of Virginia” fully illustrate how a place that seems innocent or even beautiful to some can be upsetting to others. Monica Sok’s “ABC for Refugees” powerfully paints a portrait of a young child caught between languages and cultures — a reality that many pediatric (儿科的) patients face. “Ode to Small Towns” by Tyree Daye overturn s common assumptions about rural life. In “Medical History”, Nicole Sealey shares a patient’s perspective (视角) on a part of health care that, for many of my students and colleagues, has been reduced to a series of check boxes on a computer screen. These and other poems provide fertile ground for enhanced understanding of the human condition, as well as inspiration for a clinician’s own potentially transformative reflective writing.
The possibilities for cooperation between literature and medicine are wide open. I believe all clinicians have a role in recognizing and dealing with how everyone has been shaped by an unreasonable society. The history, sociopolitical context, imaginative perspective and reflective practices the humanities offer may improve the practice of medicine. Through understanding others’ experiences and reflecting critically on their own, every clinician can move closer to being the kind of healer they intend to be.
1. Why did the author like to share poems at work?| A．To cure his patients. | B．To bring in the humanities. |
| C．To make his colleagues amazed. | D．To practice for a competition. |
| A．Tyree Daye’s. | B．Monica Sok’s. |
| C．Safiya Sinclair’s. | D．Nicole Sealey’s. |
| A．It’s urgent to upgrade the medical equipment. |
| B．Doctors should have better medical skills. |
| C．There’s room for improvement in medical care. |
| D．A patient can be treated from different perspectives. |
| A．The humanities help make a better doctor. |
| B．The clinicians are to shape our future society. |
| C．Doctors must learn from each other’s experiences. |
| D．Reflective writing greatly benefits a doctor’s skills. |
10 . In the second half of the 18th century, a British doctor named 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 a 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. 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.
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 with the intention of ________.| A．defining what are challenge trials. |
| B．showing the origin of the word “vaccination”. |
| C．emphasizing the importance of his vaccine. |
| D．introducing the topic of challenge trials. |
| A．The issues behind challenge trials are easy to solve. |
| B．Despite the risks, challenge trials can benefit numerous lives. |
| C．The dangers of challenge trials outweigh the benefits they bring. |
| D．Challenge trials can prevent the development of vaccine technologies. |
| A．A cautious attitude should be taken towards challenge trials. |
| B．Challenge trials guarantee participants protection against threats. |
| C．People should be more open to challenge trials. |
| D．The accuracy of challenge trials can be improved with more volunteers involved. |
| A．Can challenge trials block medical progress? |
| B．Should we use challenge trials to find cures? |
| C．Can challenge trials put an end to infectious diseases? |
| D．Should we replace animal testing with challenge trials? |
