1 . A recent global study, which surveyed 10,000 young people from 10 countries, showed that nearly 60 percent of them were extremely worried about the future state of the planet. The report, which was published in The Lancet, also showed that nearly half of the respondents said that such distress affected them daily, and three quarters agreed with the statement that “the future is frightening.” This, along with many other studies, shows clearly that climate change is not just a threat to the environment that we inhabit. It also poses a very real threat to our emotional well-being. Psychologists have categorized these feelings of grief and worry about the current climate emergency, a common occurrence among youth today, under the label of “eco-anxiety”.
Eco-anxiety doesn’t just affect young people. It also affects researchers who work in climate and ecological science, burdened by the reality depicted by their findings, and it affects the most economically marginalized (边缘化的) across the globe, who bear the damaging impacts of climate breakdown.
In 2024, eco-anxiety will rise to become one of the leading causes of mental health problems. The reasons are obvious. Scientists estimate that the world is likely to breach safe limits of temperature rise above pre-industrial levels for the first time by 2027.
In recent years, we’ve seen wildfires tear through Canada and Greece, and summer floods ruin regions in Pakistan that are home to nearly 33 million people. Studies have shown that those impacted by air pollution and rising temperatures are more likely to experience psychological distress.
To make matters worse, facing climate crisis, our political class is not offering strong leadership. The COP28 conference in Dubai will be headed by an oil and gas company executive. In the UK, the government is backtracking on its green commitments.
Fortunately, greater levels of eco-anxiety will also offer an avenue for resolving the climate crisis directly. According to Caroline Hickman, a researcher on eco-anxiety from the University of Bath, anyone experiencing eco-anxiety is displaying entirely natural and rational reactions to the climate crisis. This is why, in 2024, we will also see more people around the world join the fight for climate justice and seek jobs that prioritize environmental sustainability. Campaigners will put increased pressure on fossil fuel industries and the governments to rapidly abandon the usage of polluting coal, oil, and gas.
It’s now clear that not only are these industries the main causes for the climate crisis, they are also responsible for the mental health crisis, which is starting to affect most of us. Eco-anxiety is not something we will defeat with therapy, but something we will tackle by taking action.
1. What can we learn from the passage?| A．The cause of eco-anxiety is emotions existing in our mind. |
| B．People in developed countries are more likely to suffer from eco-anxiety. |
| C．Eco-anxiety is a new kind of psychological disease due to climate change. |
| D．The author is disappointed about government behaviour towards climate crisis. |
| A．Break. | B．Reach. | C．Raise. | D．Affect. |
| A．puzzled | B．favourable | C．suspicious | D．unconcerned |
| A．Who Is to Blame for Eco-anxiety? |
| B．How Should You See Eco-anxiety? |
| C．How Will Eco-anxiety Be Resolved? |
| D．Why Do People Suffer from Eco-anxiety? |
2 . While some allergies (过敏症) disappear over time or with treatment, others last a lifetime. For decades, scientists have been searching for the source of these lifetime allergies.
Recently, researchers found that memory B cells may be involved. These cells produce a different class of antibodies known as IgG, which ward off viral infections. But no one had identified exactly which of those cells were recalling allergens or how they switched to making the IgE antibodies responsible for allergies. To uncover the mysterious cells, two research teams took a deep dive into the immune (免疫的) cells of people with allergies and some without.
Immunologist Joshua Koenig and colleagues examined more than 90, 000 memory B cells from six people with birch allergies, four people allergic to dust mites and five people with no allergies. Using a technique called RNA sequencing, the team identified specific memory B cells, which they named MBC2s that make antibodies and proteins associated with the immune response that causes allergies.
In another experiment, Koenig and colleagues used a peanut protein to go fishing for memory B cells from people with peanut allergies. The team pulled out the same type of cells found in people with birch and dust mite allergies. In people with peanut allergies, those cells increased in number and produced IgE antibodies as the people started treatment to desensitize them to peanut allergens.
Another group led by Maria Curotto de Lafaille, an immunologist at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York City, also found that similar cells were more plentiful in 58 children allergic to peanuts than in 13 kids without allergies. The team found that the cells are ready to switch from making protective IgG antibodies to allergy-causing IgE antibodies. Even before the switch, the cells were making RNA for IgE but didn’t produce the protein. Making that RNA enables the cells to switch the type of antibodies they make when they encounter allergens. The signal to switch partially depends on a protein called JAK, the group discovered. “Stopping JAK from sending the signal could help prevent the memory cells from switching to IgE production,” Lafaille says. She also predicts that allergists may be able to examine aspects of these memory cells to forecast whether a patient's allergy is likely to last or disappear with time or treatment.
“Knowing which population of cells store allergies in long-term memory may eventually help scientists identify other ways to kill the allergy cells,” says Cecilia Berin, an immunologist at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. “You could potentially get rid of not only your peanut allergy but also all of your allergies.”
1. Why did scientists investigate the immune cells of individuals with and without allergies?| A．To explore the distinctions between IgG and IgE. |
| B．To uncover new antibodies known as IgG and IgE. |
| C．To identify cells responsible for defending against allergies. |
| D．To reveal cells associated with the development of allergies. |
| A．Make. . . less destructive. | B．Make. . . less responsive. |
| C．Make. . . less protective. | D．Make. . . less effective. |
| A．MBC2s make antibodies and proteins that prevent allergies. |
| B．Memory B cells generate both RNA for IgE and the corresponding protein. |
| C．JAK plays a role in controlling antibody production when exposed to allergens. |
| D．Allergists are capable of predicting whether an allergy will last or disappear. |
| A．RNA Sequencing Is Applied in Immunology Research |
| B．Specific Cells Related to Peanut Allergies Are Identified |
| C．Unmasking Cells’ Identities Helps Diagnose and Treat Allergies |
| D．Newfound Immune Cells Are Responsible for Long-lasting Allergies |
3 . Do you want to be a cognitive superager when you are old? Just as you take steps towards a future-proofing body, you can enhance your brain’s resilience to age-related disease by boosting cognitive reserve.
Andrew Sommerlad, an associate professor of psychiatry, discovers the power of cognitive reserve in studies of older people who show signs of Alzheimer’s (阿尔兹海默症) in their brains.
How do you improve it? The younger you implement things that will bolster it, the better. For example, you can do tasks that challenges your brain ability, like crosswords, reading, giving impromptu speech and critical thinking.
Cognitive reserve is developed through a lifetime of education, curiosity and persistence.
| A．Its effects are wide reaching. |
| B．Additionally, maintain regular sleep patterns. |
| C．So plan ahead to make sure you keep cognitively busy and engaged! |
| D．There are ways you can improve sleep, for both young and old people. |
| E．It suggests that developing a good cognitive reserve can be powerfully protective. |
| F．However, thinking too hard for too long may wear you out, hurting cognitive reserve. |
| G．They cope better with pathological (病理上的) changes, the higher their powers of cognitive reserve. |
Millions of people over the age of 65 have been diagnosed with depression, and many more could be suffering. There are varied factors. Older people are much more likely to be alone, socially isolated or feel a general lack of purpose. Sometimes older people have a much more difficult time admitting mental health issues.
Early memory loss often causes depression, which can in turn make memory loss worse. A patient with early memory loss and depression really needs to be treated for the depression to slow the memory loss. A mood change also can be a sign of depression. If a previously calm person becomes increasingly bad-tempered, or a previously clean person no longer bothers to shower, that person should be judged again.
Older adults see depression as a weakness and tend to be annoyed by a diagnosis of depression. Therefore, don’t tell people of an older generation that you think they may be depressed. Tell them you’re worried about their health. Tell them they seem to be out of sorts, or seem tired, or unhappy. Say you just want to check with the doctor to see what’s going on. Once you’ve used physical symptoms to get that person to agree to a check-up, mention your fears to the doctor and allow the doctor to approach the subject of depression with the patient.
If a parent or an older loved one has been diagnosed with depression, the first thing people should do is be aware that diagnosis is not easily treated. The initial treatment may not be effective. Therefore, patients and family members should be prepared to try different ways of dealing with the depression. It’s also important to encourage patients to stick with treatment — even if they start to feel better.
1. What factors might lead to older people’s depression besides early memory loss?2. Why do patients with early memory loss and depression really need to be treated?
3. Please decide which part is false in the following statement, then underline it and explain why.
People diagnosed with depression can reduce their treatment once they start to feel better.
4. What will you do if you notice that one beloved elderly uncle of yours is obviously depressed? Why?
Doctors in Bristol can send patients on a free course from this month, which uses stand-up comedy to help patients overcome their trauma (创伤). The course was pioneered by Angie Belcher, a comedian at the University of Bristol.
Comedy is a natural human trait (特质). Every night we come back home from work and tell our family what our day was like, but on the way home we’ll make up details, and try to make our stories funnier to entertain family members. Professional comedy education is to give a tool to take this to a more polished and informed level. The content of the six-week course is described as a “combination of psychology, comedy and storytelling.”
Actually, past traumas are perfect for comedy. Comedy doesn’t come from the happy moments of our life, but from our everyday struggles. People, who’ve been through big life experiences, such as the loss of a close friend or ill health, often can’t wait to share their stories, mostly because there’s always something funny about the situation. We can accept and honor the comedy of a situation, as much as the sadness of it.
While the comedy course can’t take the place of traditional clinical approaches, talking about our trauma in a funny way is quite lovely, and more importantly, it has a chain reaction on our audience, and we help other people to deal with their sadness. When we bring our stories alive for others, it makes other people feel less alone. Having our experiences mirrored back to us is hugely comforting. Comedy builds community.
1. Who was the course pioneered by?2. What is the content of the course?
3. Please underline the false part in the following statement and explain why.
Comedy comes from our everyday struggles, and from the happy moments of our life as well.
4. If you meet a trauma, would you like to take the comedy course? Why?
(In about 40 words)
6 . Measles (麻疹), which once killed 1450 children each year and disabled even more, was nearly wiped out in the United States 14 years ago by the universal use of the MMR vaccine (疫苗). But the disease is making a comeback, caused by a growing anti-vaccine movement and misinformation that is spreading quickly. Already this year, 115 measles cases have been reported in the USA, compared with 189 for all of last year.
The numbers might sound small, but they are the leading edge of a dangerous trend. When vaccination rates are very high, as they still are in the nation as a whole, everyone is protected. This is called “herd immunity”, which protects the people who get hurt easily, including those who can’t be vaccinated for medical reasons, babies too young to get vaccinated and people on whom the vaccine doesn’t work.
But herd immunity works only when nearly the whole herd joins in. When some refuse vaccination and seek a free ride, immunity breaks down and everyone is in even bigger danger.
That’s exactly what is happening in small neighborhoods around the country from Orange County, California, where 22 measles cases were reported this month, to Brooklyn, N.Y., where a 17-year-old caused an outbreak last year.
The resistance to vaccine has continued for decades, and it is driven by a real but very small risk. Those who refuse to take that risk selfishly make others suffer.
Making things worse are state laws that make it too easy to opt out (决定不参加) of what are supposed to be required vaccines for all children entering kindergarten. Seventeen states allow parents to get an exemption (豁免), sometimes just by signing a paper saying they personally object to a vaccine.
Now, several states are moving to tighten laws by adding new regulations for opting out. But no one does enough to limit exemptions.
Parents ought to be able to opt out only for limited medical or religious reasons. But personal opinions? Not good enough. Everyone enjoys the life-saving benefits vaccines provide, but they’ll exist only as long as everyone shares in the risks.
1. The first two paragraphs suggest that .| A．a small number of measles cases can start a dangerous trend |
| B．the outbreak of measles attracts the public attention |
| C．anti-vaccine movement has its medical reasons |
| D．information about measles spreads quickly |
| A．exemptions are allowed | B．several vaccines are used together |
| C．the whole neighborhood involved in | D．new regulations are added to the state laws |
| A．To introduce the idea of exemption. | B．To discuss methods to cure measles. |
| C．To stress the importance of vaccination. | D．To appeal for equal rights in medical treatment. |
7 . I was diagnosed with throat cancer (被诊断为喉癌) and met with the doctor.
“You’ll probably need a feeding tube (管子). Most people lose weight during treatment. You only weigh 145 pounds. It’s dangerous if you drop below 130 pounds during treatment.”
I said, “You can’t imagine how much I’ll hate a feeding tube. I’ll make myself eat.”
The doctor replied, “But when you have second-degree radiation burns inside your esophagus (食道), you won’t be able to make yourself eat. How old are you, 64? Your blood pressure’s 82/60, and your heart rate is 52. Those numbers are great for any age.”
His assistant (助手) Jana said, “I believe you run. How long have you been running?”
“All my life. Rain or snow, hot or cold, I ran. I ran when it hurt and when it didn’t.”
“I’ll make myself eat. How bad can it be? I can stand anything for five minutes,” I told the doctor.
Three weeks later, I could hardly walk. I missed running, but the treatment took away my strength.
Two months later, the doctor said, “The treatment went really well. It was easy for you because you’re a runner. You started treatment in great condition, and you have a high level of pain tolerance (忍耐力). This treatment is harder on most people.”
Jana checked my weight after the last treatment. “138 pounds.1 remember you run. Good for you,” she said.
I said, “I can run, can’t I?”
“Whenever you’re ready.”
I promised myself I’d be running in two months, but it didn’t work out the way I wanted. I walked my first mile a month after the last treatment and added a 10th of a mile every day after that. Three months after treatment, I ran three miles without stopping. At mile two, I realized I was going to finish and started to cry. It was a dusty day, and there was dust on my face. I walked in the house. My wife took one look at me and shouted, “Are you okay? I’ll call for a doctor.”
“I’m fine. I ran the whole three miles. I never thought I’d be able to do that again.”
1. How did the author respond when the doctor suggested a feeding tube?| A．He refused to use it. |
| B．He found it a bit dangerous. |
| C．He doubted it would be helpful to him. |
| D．He said it was unacceptable to old people. |
| A．He took up running to lose weight. |
| B．He kept running whatever happened. |
| C．He decided to run every day although he hated it. |
| D．He found it difficult to keep running as he aged. |
| A．It was very successful. | B．It brought him little pain. |
| C．It was rather hard on him. | D．It took more time than expected. |
| A．He realized it was impossible for him to run fast. |
| B．He got badly injured and experienced great pain. |
| C．He was certain that he would lead the race. |
| D．He was excited that he could run like before. |
8 . My wife Hannah and I usually don’t keep houseplants. Anything in pots gets either overwatered or underwatered. After my diagnosis (诊断) with a brain cancer, I loved to have something green and alive around us. And then I got a lucky bamboo plant in a pot from my friend Mitch. I told Hannah I wanted to care for the plant myself.
As a physician, I was used to providing care. Since my diagnosis, I had to rely on help from other people, leaving me feeling aimless and upset. Watering the plant taught me I could still be a caregiver.
Over the next few months, I recovered from surgery and completed the first round of treatment. Both the bamboo and I were thriving (繁荣). Then, mysteriously, it began to show signs of stress. No matter what I did, the leaves kept dropping to the floor, making me discouraged and uneasy.
“I can’t even care for simple plant!” I yelled. “I’m failing!”
Hannah reminded me that we’d seen houseplants die before. She asked me why I was getting so worked up about this particular one.
“If my lucky bamboo dies,” I cried out, “I might die too!”
Identifying with the plant had offered me comfort. Now that the plant was struggling, I felt increasingly fearful.
Suddenly, one day, I realized I had wrongly connected my care for the plant—something over which I had at least some control — with my own survival — something over which I had no control. When my cancer returned, it would not be because of any failure on my part — not because I ate sugar occasionally and certainly not because I failed to keep this plant alive.
As my anxiety lessened, I learned from online tips to care for my dying plant. I moved the bamboo to a larger pot, separating its roots to give it room to grow. When it was back in the sunny window, we both began to thrive again.
1. What made the author change his attitude toward keeping houseplants?| A．He recovered from surgery. | B．He got a lucky bamboo plant. |
| C．He was diagnosed with a cancer. | D．He learned how to water a plant. |
| A．His struggle with cancer. |
| B．His decision to care for the plant. |
| C．His inability to look after himself. |
| D．His belief in linking his survival to the plant’s. |
| A．Everything comes to those who wait. |
| B．Positive thinking is a cure of anxiety. |
| C．Trust yourself that you can do it and get it. |
| D．You carry the passport to your own success. |
9 . To a chef, the sounds of lip smacking, slurping and swallowing are the highest form of flattery (恭维). But to someone with a certain type of misophonia (恐音症), these same sounds can be torturous. Brain scans are now helping scientists start to understand why.
People with misophonia experience strong discomfort, annoyance or disgust when they hear particular triggers. These can include chewing, swallowing, slurping, throat clearing, coughing and even audible breathing. Researchers previously thought this reaction might be caused by the brain overactively processing certain sounds. Now, however, a new study published in Journal of Neuroscience has linked some forms of misophonia to heightened “mirroring” behavior in the brain: those affected feel distress while their brains act as if they were imitating the triggering mouth movements.
“This is the first breakthrough in misophonia research in 25 years,” says psychologist Jennifer J. Brout, who directs the International Misophonia Research Network and was not involved in the new study.
The research team, led by Neweastle University neuroscientist Sukhbinder Kumar, analyzed brain activity in people with and without misophonia when they were at rest and while they listened to sounds. These included misophonia triggers (such as chewing), generally unpleasant sounds (like a crying baby）, and neutral sounds. The brain’s auditory (听觉的) cortex, which processes sound, reacted similarly in subjects with and without misophonia. But in both the resting state and listening trials, people with misophonia showed stronger connections between the auditory cortex and brain regions that control movements of the face, mouth and throat, while the controlled group didn’t. Kumar found this connection became most active in participants with misophonia when they heard triggers specific to the condition.
“Just by listening to the sound, they activate the motor cortex more strongly. So in a way it was as if they were doing the action themselves,” Kumar says. Some mirroring is typical in most humans when witnessing others’ actions; the researchers do not yet know why an excessive(过分的) mirroring response might cause such a negative reaction, and hope to address that in future research. “Possibilities include a sense of loss of control, invasion of personal space, or interference with current goals and actions,” the study authors write.
Fatima Husain, an Illinois University professor of speech and hearing science, who was not involved in the study, says potential misophonia therapies could build on the new findings by counseling patients about handling unconscious motor responses to triggering sounds—not just coping with the sounds themselves. If this works, she adds, one should expect to see reduced connected activity between the auditory and motor cortices.
1. It can be learnt from the new study that ______.| A．misophonia sufferers can’t help imitating the triggers |
| B．people with misophonia are more likely to flatter chefs |
| C．the brains of people with misophonia overreact to sounds strongly |
| D．misophonia sufferers tend to have similar annoying activities in their brains |
| A．suffer less severely at the resting state | B．own markedly different brain structures |
| C．react more negatively at a mirroring response | D．lose control of their facial movements easily |
| A．Improving speech and hearing science. | B．Developing a treatment for misophonia. |
| C．Drawing people’s attention to misophonia. | D．Promoting human brain structure research. |
10 . Imagine a simple blood test that could flag most kinds of cancers at the earliest, most curable stage. Liquid biopsies could, in theory, detect a tumor (肿瘤) well before it could be found by touch, symptoms or imaging. Blood tests could avoid the need for surgeons to cut tissue samples and make it possible to reveal cancer hiding in places needles and scalpels cannot safely reach. They could also determine what type of cancer is taking root to help doctors decide what treatment might work best to destroy it.
Liquid biopsies are not yet in hand, because it is hard to find definitive cancer signals in a tube of blood, but progress in recent years has been impressive. Last year the journal Science published the first big prospective study of a liquid biopsy for DNA and proteins from multiple types of cancers. Though far from perfect, the blood test called CancerSEEK found 26 tumors that had not been discovered with conventional screenings.
Liquid biopsies can rely on a variety of biomarkers in addition to tumor DNA and proteins, such as free-floating cancer cells themselves. But what makes the search difficult, Ana Robles, a cancer biologist of the National Cancer Institute, explains, is that “if you have an early-stage cancer or certain types of cancer, there might not be a lot of tumor DNA,” and tests might miss it. The ideal blood test will be both very specific and very sensitive so that even tiny tumors can be found. To tackle this challenge, CancerSEEK looks for cancer-specific mutations (突变) on 16 genes, and for eight proteins that are linked to cancer and for which there are highly sensitive tests.
Simple detection is not the only goal. An ideal liquid biopsy will also determine the likely location of the cancer so that it can be treated. “Mutations are often shared among different kinds of cancer, so if you find them in blood, you don’t know if that mutation is coming from a stomach cancer or lung cancer,” says Anirban Maitra, a cancer scientist at the Anderson Cancer Center. To solve that problem, some newer liquid biopsies look for changes in gene expression. Such changes, Maitra notes, are “more organ-specific”.
On the nearer horizon are liquid biopsies to help people already diagnosed with cancer. Last year the government approved the first two such tests, which scan for tumor DNA so doctors can select mutation-targeted drugs. Scientists are working on blood tests to detect the first signs of cancer recurrence (复发) in patients who have completed treatment. This work is moving fast, but does it save lives?
That is the question companies such as Thrive and Grail must answer for their broadly ambitious screening tests. “These companies have to prove that they can detect early cancer and, more important, that the early detection can have an impact on cancer survival,” Maitra observes.
1. According to the passage, liquid biopsies are expected to| A．flag cancer and determine the treatment |
| B．detect cancer signals from a sample of blood |
| C．take images of tumors and prevent potential cancers |
| D．show types of cancer by measuring the amount of proteins |
| A．Signs of cancer recurrence are not detectable. |
| B．Different kinds of cancer have different gene mutations. |
| C．Biomarkers are much more reliable than tumor DNA and proteins. |
| D．Organ-specific cancers will be identified through changes in gene expression. |
| A．liquid biopsies can discover tumors conventional screenings can’t find |
| B．liquid biopsies can improve the application of mutation-targeted drugs |
| C．liquid biopsies can help save the lives of those with cancer |
| D．liquid biopsies can be developed for cancer prevention |
