1 . Art—no matter whether you choose to create it yourself or simply observe and enjoy it—is a relaxing and inspiring activity for many people. However, the particular benefits of artistic expression go much further.
Studies suggest that art therapy (疗法) can be very valuable in treating issues such as depression and anxiety disorder. It is a great way to express your emotions without words, process complex feelings and find relief.
You don’t necessarily have to see a therapist in order to experience some of the benefits of artistic expression. There are many simple activities you can try from the comfort of your home such as art journaling, drawing, making collections, sculpting with clay, etc. It doesn’t matter what media you choose. The only thing that matters is that you feel comfortable using it. Human beings are naturally creative, and all you need to do to complete an art therapy activity successfully is to be with yourself and your emotions. Once you free your creativity, your inner artist will quickly wake up.
However, working with a licensed therapist also has its advantage because a professional can tailor each activity to your own needs. If the activities are done in a group, they are excellent for building healthy connections with other people, which may be very helpful if you are fighting depression.
Experts agree that art therapy has many benefits, from promoting your self-respect, and providing you a safe outlet to relieve your emotions, to giving you a sense of control over your life and helping you to get to know and understand yourself better. During the process of art creation, you will be taking yourself on a journey of self-discovery that will help you get rid of emotional roadblocks, and learn how to communicate with yourself and others.
1. To complete an art therapy successfully, you have to ______.| A．be talented for art | B．see a therapist |
| C．choose a special media | D．accept yourself |
| A．The activities are tailored to one’s own needs. | B．The activities are inspiring. |
| C．The activities are comforting. | D．The activities promote communication. |
| A．explain the advantages of art therapy |
| B．give some advice about promoting your self-respect |
| C．provide an approach to relieve your emotions |
| D．summarize the process of art creation |
| A．How to develop drawing skills. |
| B．How to wake up art creativity. |
| C．Art therapy is a great way to treat mental health. |
| D．Art can be used to learn how to communicate with oneself. |
At the start of nearly every doctor's visit, chances are that you will be asked to get your weight measured for that day's exam record - and you would be hard-pressed to find a person whose physician has not brought up his or her weight at some point, and doctors' recommendations to drop pounds are still extremely common. But many conversations around weight have become a barrier, not a help, in the campaign to make people healthier.
Higher body masses are associated with increased risk for hypertension, diabetes and coronary disease. Many studies have shown that heavier people are at higher risk for these illnesses. But the big picture is not the whole picture. Researchers have identified a smaller group of overweight people considered to be ''metabolically (新陈代谢地) healthy'' - meaning they do not exhibit high blood pressure or other diseases.
Research over the past two decades has shown that health professionals have negative attitudes toward fat people. Some refuse to see these patients at all, as the South Florida Sun Sentinel reported in 2011. Such practices keep people from regular annual exams and prevent the finding of serious underlying conditions. Not only that but doctors' appointments with fat patients are shorter on average, and they routinely use negative words in their medical histories of such people. And research suggests that the stress of being a heavy person may cause metabolic changes that may lead to more poor health outcomes.
To achieve better health outcomes, doctors should focus on behaviors that have proven positive outcomes for health instead of the weight-centric health care practice. And people of all sizes are entitled to evidence-based factors that empower them and keep them healthy. Lifestyle changes, such as eating fruits, vegetables and whole grains, along with increased physical activity, can improve blood pressure, levels and sensitivity - often independently of changes in body weight.
1. What will you be asked to do when visiting a doctor for the first time? (不多于4个单词)2. Why does the stress of being a heavy person may lead to more poor health outcomes? (不多于6个单词)
3. What are doctors expected to do to achieve better health outcomes? (不多于10个单词)
4. What is the passage mainly about? (不多于4个单词)
1. 中医有着悠久的历史，经过了数千年的实践和发展；
2. 中医也是一门科学，它的优点正得到越来越广泛的认可；
3. 你自己对中医的看法。
注意：词数不少于 50。
参考词汇：“中医” Traditional Chinese Medicine （TCM）
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
4 . Shortage of Primary Care Threatens Health Care System
Increasing health care bills, long emergency-room waits and the inability to find a primary care physician just scratch the surface of the problems that patients face daily.
Primary care should be the support of any health care system. Countries with appropriate primary care resources score highly when it comes to health outcomes and cost. The U.S. takes the opposite approach by emphasizing the specialist rather than the primary care physician.
A recent study analyzed the providers who treat Medicare beneficiaries. The surprising finding was that the average Medicate patient saw a total of seven doctors - two primary care physicians and five specialists - in a given year.
Contrary to popular belief, the more physicians taking care of you doesn't guarantee better care. Actually, increasing fragmentation of care results in a corresponding rise in cost and medical errors.
How did we take little care of primary care? The key is how doctors are paid. Most physicians are paid whenever they perform a medical service. The more a physician does, regardless of quality or outcome, the better he's reimbursed. Moreover, the amount a physician receives leans heavily toward medical or surgical procedures.
A specialist who performs a procedure in a 30-minute visit can be paid three times more than a primary care physician using that same 30 minutes to discuss a patient's disease. Combine this fact with annual government threats to randomly cut reimbursements, physicians are faced with no choice but to increase quantity to boost income.
Primary care physicians who refuse to compromise quality are either driven out of business or to cash-only practices, further contributing to the decline of primary care.
Medical students aren't blind to this action. They know how heavily the reimbursement is against primary care. The recent numbers show that since 1997, newly graduated U.S. medical students who choose primary care as a career have declined by 50%. This trend results in emergency rooms being overwhelmed with patients without regular doctors.
How do we fix this problem?
It starts with reforming the physician reimbursement system. Remove the pressure for primary care physicians to squeeze in more patients per hour, and reward them for optimally managing their diseases and practicing evidence-based medicine. Make primary care more attractive to medical students by forgiving student loans for those who choose primary care as a career and reconciling the marked difference between specialist and primary care physician salaries.
We’re at a point where primary care is needed more than ever. Within a few years, the first wave of the 76 million Baby Boomers will become eligible for Medicare. Patients older than 85, who need chronic care most, will rise by 50% this decade.
Who will be there to treat them?
1. The author’s chief concern about the current U.S. health care system is _________.| A．the ever-rising health care costs | B．the declining number of doctors |
| C．the inadequate training of physicians | D．the shrinking primary care resources |
| A．the more doctors taking care of a patient, the better |
| B．visiting doctors on a regular basis ensures good health |
| C．seeing more doctors may result in more diagnostic errors |
| D．the more costly the medicine, the more effective the cure. |
| A．make various deals with specialists | B．improve their expertise and service |
| C．see more patients at the expense of quality | D．increase their income by working overtime |
| A．Extend primary care to patients with chronic diseases. |
| B．Recruit more medical students by offering them loans. |
| C．Reduce the tuition of students who choose primary care as their major. |
| D．Bridge the salary gap between specialists and primary care physicians. |
1.你对中医的认识；
2.你的建议。
注意：1.词数不少于50；
2.开头已为你写好，不计入总词数。
提示词：中医 Traditional Chinese Medicine/TCM
Dear Jim,
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Yours,
Li Hua
Alexander Fleming was born
7 . China will give the green light to Internet medical services conducted by medical institutions as part of a broader push to promote Internet Plus Healthcare, those at a State Council executive meeting chaired by Premier Li Keqiang decided.
Medical institutions will be allowed to provide online diagnostic services for some common and chronic diseases in patients' follow-up visits to their doctors. The top levels of hospitals will be encouraged to provide online services, including consultations (会诊), reservations and test result inquiries.
As China joins the ranks of middle-income countries, the demand for health services has increased accordingly. Internet Plus Healthcare can help reduce the problem of inaccessible and expensive public health services that have long been a big concern for the general public.
One decision coming out of the meeting says the intelligent review for health insurance will be applied and the one-stop settlement will be advanced. The real-time sharing of prescription and drug retail sales will be explored, as well.
“We must waste no time in pushing forward the measures once the decisions made.” Li said. “In recent years, top-level hospitals in major cities have seen steady increases in the number of patients. Medical bills have become a heavy burden on families and high-end medical resources still fall short of meeting the growing demand of the public.”
To solve the problem, a two-pronged (双管齐下的) approach must be taken. One is to establish medical partnerships to strengthen cooperation between major hospitals and community clinics. The other is to bring forward Internet Plus Healthcare to promote the sharing of quality medical resources.
The government will see to it that long-distance healthcare services cover all county-level hospitals. So more efforts will be made to ensure that high-speed broadband network will be extended to cover medical institutions in urban and rural areas. Dedicated internet access services will be set up to meet the needs for long-distance healthcare services.
1. According to the text, which of the following services won’t a patient enjoy online?| A．Receiving a medical operation. |
| B．Asking doctors for advice after the test. |
| C．Several doctors discussion about the disease. |
| D．Making an appointment with a doctor in advance. |
| A．The expense of medical care. |
| B．The recognition of health insurance. |
| C．The improvement of people's life quality. |
| D．The inconvenience of hospital equipment. |
| A．The bills are impossible to afford. |
| B．The situations are urgent to improve. |
| C．The measures are perfectly worked out, |
| D．The hospitals are unwilling to admit patients. |
| A．Modern Hospitals |
| B．Online Healthcare on its Way |
| C．No More Burden for General People |
| D．Wide Applications of Internet Service |
8 . Venom (毒液) from a local scorpion (蝎子) in Cuba is being used by Cuban scientists as an effective weapon to fight cancer. The venom, with stopping pain, anti-inflammatory (炎症) and anti-cancer properties, is the active ingredient in the medicine “Vidatox 30 CH which can be used to treat liver, brain, lung and other cancers. The treatment has been successfully used for more than four years in humans after being first tested in biological models. Labiofam, a Cuban laboratory, has breeding (繁殖) centers for both the Red Scorpion and Blue Scorpion. Each month, some 30,000 scorpions in Las Minas town, 270 km east of Havana are made to give the venom. After two years, the scorpions are released back into their natural habitat.
Denyer Sanchez, a biologist from Labiofam, explained that the conditions are adjusted for reproduction, proved by the high number of breeding female scorpions. He said when the offspring (后代) becomes able to live in the environment, we release them because they do not have the necessary size yet to remove their venom, said Sanchez. Sanchez also said that there is still much to research on the exploitation process of scorpions, such as female death rate or the ability to survive of the released scorpions.
Cuban research on the scorpion’s venom began at the end of 1980s in Guantanamo province, the island’s eastern tip, where a group of biologists and doctors became interested in the stories told by the peasants about the venom's benefits. However，the first discovery was made by Cuban biologist Misael Bordier. In 2001, Bordier visited Mexico’s National Autonomous University (UNAM) and presented the research progress in a professional journal. Bordier died in 2005, one year before Cuba’s Industrial Property Office gave Labiofam the rights to exploit the patent related to the venom.
1. How are the scorpions dealt with after their venom has been taken for two years?| A．Their bodies are used to make medicines. |
| B．They are bred in the laboratory for research. |
| C．They are raised to give birth to the offspring. |
| D．They are set free into their natural habitat. |
| A．The UN provided fund for the research team. |
| B．There is still much to study in detail. |
| C．The achievements will benefit animals. |
| D．Many scientists doubt about the result of the research. |
| A．He was given the rights to exploit the patent. |
| B．He began his research at the beginning of the twenty-first century. |
| C．He put forward the research progress in a professional journal. |
| D．He was a peasant who told the stories about the venom’s benefits. |
| A．The various uses of scorpions in Cuba. |
| B．Cuban biologists’ research on strange diseases. |
| C．Suitable conditions for Cuban scorpions to breed. |
| D．Cuban scorpion venom’s effect on fighting cancer. |
9 . Optimism May Help People Live Longer
People who have an optimistic view on life are more likely to live longer, a US study said Wednesday.
The study, published in the American Journal of Epidemiology, analyzed data from 2004 to 2012 from 70,000 women enrolled in the Nurses’ Health Study, a long-running US study tracking women’s health via surveys every two years.
The researchers looked at participants’ levels of optimism and other factors that might play a role in how optimism may affect mortality risk, such as race, high blood pressure, diet, and physical activity.
It found the most optimistic women, or the top 25%, had a nearly 30 percent lower risk of dying from any of the diseases analyzed in the study compared with the least optimistic women, or the bottom 25%.
The most optimistic women had a 16 percent lower risk of dying from cancer; 38 percent lower risk of dying from heart disease; 39 percent lower risk of dying from stroke; 38 percent lower risk of dying from respiratory disease; and 52 percent lower risk of dying from infection.
Previous studies have linked optimism with reduced risk of early death from cardiovascular (心脑血管的) problems, but this was the first to find a link between optimism and reduced risk from other major causes.
“While most medical and public health efforts today focus on reducing risk factors for diseases, evidence has been mounting that enhancing psychological resilience (弹性，复原力) may also make a difference,” said Eric Kim, research fellow at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and co-lead author of the study.
“Our new findings suggest that we should make efforts to boost optimism, which has been shown to be associated with healthier behaviors and healthier ways of coping with life challenges.”
The study also found that healthy behaviors only partially explain the link between optimism and reduced mortality risk. One other possibility is that higher optimism directly affects our biological systems, Kim said.
Co-lead author and postdoctoral research fellow Kaitlin Hagan said optimism can be varied with relatively uncomplicated and low-cost interventions (干预), even things as simple as having people write down and think about the best possible outcomes for various areas of their lives, such as careers or friendships.
“Encouraging use of these interventions could be an innovative way to enhance health in the future,” Hagan said.
1. According to the recent study, optimism can ________.| A．help women live longer than men |
| B．enable people to stay healthy |
| C．cure people of high blood pressure |
| D．make woman stay young and nice |
| A．took the risk of dying from infection |
| B．were less likely to die from some disease |
| C．had a 39% lower risk of suffering from cancer |
| D．were less likely to suffer from low emotions |
| A．increasing | B．appearing |
| C．doubling | D．showing |
| A．simple but high-cost interventions should be tried out |
| B．higher optimism indirectly influences our body |
| C．optimism should be encouraged and developed |
| D．optimism can help people meet all kinds of challenges |
10 . April 4th was just another day on a Western Australia farm for Zac Mitchell, until it suddenly wasn’t. In an unexpected accident, the cattle worker was feeding the animals in his charge when one bull cleaned him up and kicked his hand up against the rail, resulting in the thumb on his right hand being cut off. “My thumb was still hanging on the rail... when I got up off the ground,” Zac Mitchell says.
His co-workers tried their best to preserve the thumb for reattachment, placing it on ice in a cooler, but two surgeries to put Mitchell’s thumb back in place failed. That’s when doctors came up with another suggestion: Remove one of his big toes to where his thumb used to be.
Mitchell’s lead surgeon, Sean Nicklin, understood the man’s dilemma at first, calling it a “bit of a crazy idea”. After all, Zac Mitchell did not want to be injured in another part of his body. But as the thumb is incredibly important function-wise, Mitchell eventually gave in. Nicklin explains that the big toe is surprisingly fit for a thumb switch: Nerves sync up (同步) nicely, and it looks more like a thumb, though a giant one, than any other alternative they may have come up with. He added that big toes aren’t as necessary for balance and walking as people believe. As far as the foot goes, occasional “fine balance” activities like surfing might be difficult, but most people without a big toe function fine in everyday tasks like walking and even competitive sports.
The eight-hour surgery went well, and Mitchell is expected to have a year or so of recovery in front of him before he heads back into the fields.
1. What happened to Zac Mitchell on April 4th?| A．He cleaned up a bull. | B．He was badly hurt. |
| C．He started his farm. | D．He lost his thumbs. |
| A．Recreating a new thumb in place. |
| B．Replacing the thumb with his toe. |
| C．Transplanting his co-worker’s thumb. |
| D．Putting back the cut-off thumb again. |
| A．Optimistic. | B．Insignificant. |
| C．Hesitant. | D．Rejective. |
| A．surf on the sea | B．do daily activities |
| C．only stay at home | D．work on wheelchair |
