1 . 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. |
2 . 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. |
