1、考博英语模拟试卷 155及答案与解析 一、 Reading Comprehension 0 Without fanfare or legislation, the government is orchestrating a quiet revolution in how it regulates new medicines. The revolution is based on the idea that the sicker people are, the more freedom they should have to try drugs that are not yet fully te
2、sted. For fifty years government policy has been driven by another idea: the fear that insufficiently tested medicines could cause deaths and injuries. The urgent needs of people infected with HIV, the AIDS virus, and the possibility of meeting them with new drugs have created a compelling counterva
3、iling force to the continuing concern with safety. As a result, government rules and practices have begun to change. Each step is controversial. But the shift has already gone far beyond AIDS. New ways are emerging for very sick people to try some experimental drugs before they are marketed. People
4、with the most serious forms of heart disease, cancer, emphysema, Alzheimer s or Parkinson s disease, multiple sclerosis, epilepsy, diabetes, or other grave illnesses can request such drugs through their doctors and are likelier to get them than they would have been four years ago. “Weve been too rig
5、id in not making lifesaving drugs available to people who otherwise face certain death,“ says Representative Henry Waxman, of California, who heads the subcommittee that considers changes in drug-approval policies. “Its true of AIDS, but its also true of cancer and other life- threatening diseases.“
6、 For the first time, desperate patients have become a potent political force for making new medicines available quickly. People with AIDS and their advocates, younger and angrier than most heart-disease or cancer patients, are drawing on two decades of gay activists success in organizing to get what
7、 they want from politicians. At times they found themselves allied with Reagan Administration deregulators, scientists, industry representatives, FDA staff members, and sympathetic members of Congress. They organized their own clinical trials and searched out promising drugs here and abroad. The res
8、ult is a familiar Washington story: a crisis AIDS helped crystallize an informal coalition for reform. AIDS gave new power to old complaints. As early as the 1970s the drug industry and some independent authorities worried that the Food and Do, g Administration s testing requirements were so demandi
9、ng that new drugs were being unreasonably delayed. Beginning in 1972, several studies indicated that the United States had lost its lead in marketing new medicines and that breakthrough drugs those that show new promise in treating serious or life-threatening diseases had come to be available much s
10、ooner in other countries. Two high-level commissions urged the early release of breakthrough drugs. So did the Carter Administration, but the legislation it pro- posed died in Congress. Complaints were compounded by growing concern that “if we didnt streamline policies, red tape wot, Id be an obstac
11、le to the development of the biotechnology revolution,“ as Frank E. Young, who was the head of the FDA from 1984 to 1989, put it in an interview with me. Young was a key figure in the overhaul of the FDAs policies. A pioneer in biotechnology and a former dean of the University of Rochesters medical
12、school, he came to Washington with an agenda and headed the agency for five and a half yearslonger than anyone else has since the 1960s. Young took the FDA job to help introduce new medicines created by biotechnology- whose promise he had seen in his own gene-cloning lab-and to get experimental medi
13、cines to desperately iii people more quickly. He had seen people die waiting for new medicines because “they were in the wrong place at the wrong time,“ he said. That is now changing. 1 It can be said that the people who first started the quiet drug revolution are _. （ A） doctors （ B） government off
14、icials （ C） AIDS patients （ D） pharmacologists 2 According to the passage, patients who are gravely ill _. （ A） can get experimental drugs more quickly than ever before （ B） are still unable to get experimental drugs because of government strict policies （ C） cant afford some expensive experimental
15、drugs （ D） refuse to be treated with experimental drugs 3 From the second paragraph, we learn that _. （ A） AIDS people tend to get angrier than all cancer patients （ B） AIDS people have learned some experience from homosexual people in dealing with politicians （ C） AIDS people have got some represen
16、tatives in government organizations （ D） AIDS people often work together with gay activists 4 Which of the following has the direct power over the approval of new prescription drugs? （ A） President. （ B） Congress. （ C） Senate. （ D） The Food and Drug Administration. 5 During his tenure of office as h
17、ead of the FDA, Frank E. Young_. （ A） had a bitter argument with his colleagues over the overhaul of drug-approval policies （ B） played a leading role in reconstructing the FDAs policies （ C） made some efforts to overhaul drug-approval policies, but failed （ D） met many difficulties in releasing bre
18、akthrough drugs to the desperately iii patients 5 Famed singerSteve Wonder cant see his fans dancing at his concerts. He cant see the hands of his audience as they applaud wildly at the end of his Superstition. Blind from birth, Wonder has waited his whole life for a chance to see. Recently, Wonder
19、visited Mark Humayan, a vision specialist. He thought that a new device currently being studied by Humayan might offer him that chance. The device, a retinal prosthesis, is a tiny computer chip implanted inside a patients eye. The chip sends images to the brain and allows some sightless people to se
20、e shapes and colors. Wonder hoped the retinal prosthesis might work for him. “Ive always said that if ever theres possibility of my seeing,“ said Wonder, “then I would take the challenge.“ Unfortunately for Wonder, that challenge will have to wait. Humayan explained that the device isnt ready for pe
21、ople who have been blind since birth. Their brains may not be able to handle signals from a retinal prosthesis because their brains have never handled signals from a healthy eye. However the retinal prosthesis and other devices show great promise in helping many other sightless people who once had v
22、ision see again. Perhaps one day soon, some formerly sightless people may be in Wonders audience looking up and seeing him for the very first time. Wonders willingness to take part in retinal prosthesis studies and the results of those studies are giving new hope to people who thought they would be
23、blind for the rest of their lives. More than one million people in the United States are considered legally blind, meaning that their eye- sight is severely impaired. Another one million are totally blind. Two types of specialized cells in the retina rods and cones are critical for proper vision. Li
24、ght enters the eye and falls on the rods and cones in the retina. Those cells convert the light to electrical signals, which travel through the optic nerve to the brain. The brain interprets those signals as visual images. Rods detect light at low levels of illumination. For instance, rods allow you
25、 to see faint shadows in dim moonlight. Cones, on the other hand, are most sensitive to color. Some diseases can damage cells in the retina. For instance, macular degeneration causes blind ness and other vision problems in 700,000 people in the United States each year. The condition i caused by a la
26、ck of adequate blood supply to the central part of the retina. Without blood, the rods, cones, and other cells in the retina die. Devices such as the retinal prosthesis wont prevent or cure our eye diseases, but they ma help patients who have eye disorders regain some of their vision. Different form
27、s of retinal presto sis are currently being developed. On one type, a tiny computer chip is embedded in the eye The chip has a grid of about 2,500 light-sensing elements called pixels. Light entering the eye strikes the pixels, which convert the light into electrical signals. The pixels then send th
28、e electrical signals to nerve cells, behind the retina. Those cells send signals vi the optic nerve to the brain for interpretation. Many people who have had a retinal prosthesis implanted say they can see shapes, colors and movements that they couldnt see before. “It was great,“ said Harold Churche
29、y, who n ceived his retinal prosthesis 15 years after he became totally blind. “To see light after so long was just wonderful. It was just like switching a light on.“ 6 Why did Steve Wonder visit Mark Humayan? （ A） He thought Marks device might recover his eyesight. （ B） He thought Mark might need h
30、is help in developing the device. （ C） He thought Mark might want to listen to his Superstition. （ D） He thought Mark might implant a chip into his right eye. 7 Whom is Marks retinal prosthesis ready for? （ A） For those who: have been blind from birth. （ B） For those who still have faint vision. （ C
31、） For the blind who once had eyesight. （ D） For those who still have one healthy eye. 8 For detecting colors, we depend, in the first place, on _. （ A） interpretation by the brain （ B） cones of the retina （ C） rods of the retina （ D） optic nerve 9 Why does macular degeneration cause blindness and ot
32、her vision problems? （ A） Maoular degeneration causes improper interpretation by the brain. （ B） Macular degeneration makes the retina less sensitive to the light. （ C） Maeular degeneration changes the functions of rods and cones. （ D） Macular degeneration causes inadequate supply of blood in the re
33、tina. 10 Which of the following statements about the function of retinal prosthesis is true according to the passage? （ A） It eau prevent some eye disorders. （ B） It can cure some eye disorders. （ C） It can help recover eyesight to some degree. （ D） It can repair the damaged cones. 10 “For all you k
34、now, I might have a tremendous burning talent,“ warns the heroine of Brief Encounter, as the camera pans on to a serenading lady cellist in a teashop trio. “Oh dear, no,“ comes the reply, “youre too sane and uncomplicated.“ For a place where talent rarely falls below combustion point, the Royal Coll
35、ege of Music is good at not encouraging the cinema stereotype of what it means to be an artist. In fact, the college is too close to the profession it serves to be anything but a breeding ground of serious hard work: theres not time, and very little room for temperament. The proof of industry is qui
36、te audible on weekdays during term, when the whole building generates a comfortable din of uncoordinated noise, as pervasive as the English academic smell of polished and cooked cabbage that haunts the corridors. The overall impression is that the college has outgrown its premises as well as its sou
37、nd-proofing, even though the building in Prince Consort Road has been extended twice. A hundred years ago, when the Royal College came into official existence, it was on a much smaller scale and housed in what is now the Royal College of Organists-a florid piece of 19th-century fantasy beside the Al
38、tert Hall. Most students come here straight from school, which is often at a younger age than the current director, Sir David Willcocks, would like, “Singers in particular we encourage to come later, because the voice doesnt really develop until 20 -23. But in practice we accept people before then,
39、rather than see them go elsewhere. If you tell someone to come back in three years time, and he goes off and gets a good job, why should he then risk giving it up to become a student?“ Willcocks likes to keep his students for as long as possible, and one of the major policy decisions taken since he
40、came to the college in 1974 has been to increase the length of the basic performers course by a fourth year. “The only ones who could properly go into the profession after three years are wind players, because their standards are astonishingly high these days. Other- wise, my advice is usually to st
41、ay here for four years and then perhaps take a specialist course abroad. The most critical recommendation of all for a student to abandon the idea of a professional performing career is one that Willcocks rarely has to make. Its in the nature of a conservatoire that progress, or lack of it, is publi
42、c knowledge; and, given some sensitivity to the competition, most students find their own level without having to be told, “You know when you ye done well,“ said one battle-scarred soprano, “because nobody speaks to you.“ In fact the great majority do carry on with music after they leave the college
43、, but not necessarily in the form they had expected. Conductors may end up repetiteurs in provincial opera houses; solo singers may be swept into the chorus; some are absorbed by arts administration or the BBC, and many become teachers. In all cases, even those who give up music altogether, Willcock
44、s is insistent that they havent failed: “Music is a discipline in itself, a training of the mind.“ 11 The speaker in Brief Encounter did not believe the heroine could be an artist because she was not_. （ A） well trained in n musical academy （ B） too sensitive and pure （ C） talented as she herself ha
45、d described （ D） temperamental enough to be an artist 12 What impression is given by the Royal College of Music on a normal working day? （ A） Its a place of diligent work reflected in students practice. （ B） Its a place of stale smells and loud noise. （ C） Its a crowded place with bad living conditi
46、ons. （ D） Its a good place to produce obedient students. 13 Sir David Willcocks policy in accepting students is to_. （ A） encourage potential singers （ B） give students time to develop their ability （ C） make the course last as long as possible （ D） ask singers to come after they are 20 or 23 years
47、old 14 It is seldom necessary for Sir David Willcocks to recommend that students should give up music because_. （ A） students may tell those who have no talent to give up music （ B） he thinks that it is important for everyone to get training in music （ C） they realize themselves what their real stan
48、dard is （ D） students wont follow his advice 15 Most students at the Royal College of Music_. （ A） achieve what they had originally planned （ B） become secondary singers （ C） finally give up music （ D） adapt their ambitions to circumstances 15 Radiation occurs from three natural sources: radioactive
49、 material in the environment such as in soil, rock, or building materials; cosmic rays; and substances in the human body, such as radioactive potassium in bones and radioactive carbon in tissues. These natural sources account for an exposure of about 100 millirems a year for the average American. The Iargcst single source of man-made radiation is medical X rays, yet most scientists agree that hazards from this source are not as great as those from weapons test fallout, since strontium 90 and
