1、专业英语八级模拟试卷 363及答案与解析 0 The FDA may rescind its approval of Avastin, a colon-cancer drug. If the summer of 2009 was the season of “death panels,“ as the debate over health-care reform exploded, this is the season of “17.5k dead women a year.“ Thats the body count scaremongers are predicting if the Fo
2、od and Drug Administration rescinds its provisional approval of the drug Avastin for metastatic breast cancer, a decision expected by years end. Although the move has nothing to do with the new health-care law, uncertainty about “Obama-care“ has given opponents an opening to terrify people about wha
3、ts cominglike bureaucrats rationing health care to save money. The reality is far different and, for those who care more about helping cancer patients than about scoring political points, much sadder. Thats because in 2008, when the FDA gave “fast track“ approval for Avastin in breast cancer that ha
4、s metastasizedusually to the lungs, bones, liver, or brainit was conditional on the manufacturer, Genentech, running additional clinical trials of the drugs safety and efficacy. There was good reason for that. Avastin is an angiogenesis inhibitor, a class of cancer drugs that have not lived up to th
5、eir hype: although they stop one mechanism by which malignant cells grow blood vessels to sustain them, the cells often activate a different mechanism and go on proliferating. Although Avastin does extend the lives of patients with metastatic colorectal and kidney cancer, and remains FDA-approved fo
6、r those uses, the new studies show it does not work the same miracle against metastatic breast cancer (MBC). Instead, Avastin increased whats called progression-free survival (how long before cancer spreads or grows) by about one to three weeks, depending on which chemo agent it was paired with. But
7、 it did not keep women alive any longer than chemo alone. To some advocates, progression-free survival without an increase in overall survival is still welcome, since it suggests patients have a better quality of life during their last months. But its hard to make that case for Avastin. Not only did
8、 it not keep women alive, but it also caused hypertension, hemorrhaging, bowel perforations, and other side effects. “It seems as if the drugs toxicity cancels out any benefit,“ cancer surgeon David Gorski of the Karmanos Cancer Institute told me. Perforated bowels do not equal a better quality of l
9、ife. These dismal results are what led an FDA panel to vote 121 in July to rescind the conditional approval of Avastin for MBC. Critics of health-care reform, predictably, saw nefarious motives-in particular, evidence that Obamacare will ration expensive drugs. (Avastin costs some $88,000 a year, th
10、ough few patients live that long.) The Wall Street Journal editorialized about the “Avastin mugging,“ and Sen. David Vitter accused the FDA of “assigning a value to a day of a persons life. “ If Avastin did extend lives for, lets say, $ 10,000 a day, Vitter might have a case. But it doesnt extend li
11、fe at all. That makes allegations like the 17,500 dead women (from a right-wing blog) “utter demagoguery of the most vile and despicable sort,“ Gorski wrote on the blog Science-Based Medicine. There are stories galore of women with metastatic breast cancer who are alive “because of Avastin. “ Indeed
12、, patients have been flooding the airwaves and blogosphere with claims that Avastin helped them. But the only way to tell whether Avastin deserves the credit for keeping patients alive is through large studies. “There are always patients who live longer than average,“ biostatistician Donald Berry of
13、 the MD? Anderson Cancer Center told me. “They attribute it to the treatment; people love to make attributions. “ But when the proportion of patients alive at any given time in a study is the same whether they are receiving Avastin or notas the two large trials foundthen crediting Avastin is “very l
14、ikely wrong. “ That some women did live longer on Avastin, Berry explained, “may simply reflect the natural heterogeneity of the disease and say nothing about the therapy. “ Doctors can keep prescribing Avastin for metastatic breast cancer off-label, though insurers will not pay for it. Some activis
15、ts welcome that. There is “no evidence of clinical benefit from Avastin, yet there is harm,“ says Fran Visco, president of the National Breast Cancer Coalition. “We need to demand more of treatment before we unleash it on the public. “ Science-based medicine isnt always pretty. But its better than p
16、olitics-based medicine, which is what some critics of the Avastin decision are practicingand much better than deluding ourselves into thinking something works when it doesnt. 1 What does “scaremonger“ mean in the second paragraph? （ A） A prophet who can predict what will happen in the future. （ B） A
17、 person who spreads frightening rumors and stirs up trouble. （ C） A scientist who is specialized in medicine. （ D） A sociologist who is concerned about social issues. 2 Which of the following is NOT the benefit of Avastin? （ A） It can help malignant cells grow blood vessels to sustain them. （ B） It
18、can extend the lives of patients with metastatic colorectal and kidney cancer. （ C） It can extend the lives of patients with breast cancer. （ D） It can help patients have a better quality of life during their last months. 3 Why may the FDA rescind its approval of Avastin? （ A） Because it may cause b
19、reast cancer to metastasize to other organs （ B） Because it did not keep women alive. （ C） Because it may cause side effects. （ D） Because its toxicity outweighs its benefits. 4 Opponents criticize FDAs rescinding its approval of Avastin because_. （ A） Avastin is too expensive （ B） they think Obama
20、will ration health care to save money （ C） few women benefit from the use of Avastin （ D） Avastin is effective in dealing with cancers 5 The best title of the passage is_. （ A） Its not about rationing （ B） Why the FDA may reverse course on Avastin （ C） A value to a day of a persons life （ D） Avastin
21、, a controversial medicine 5 I have a plan that will raise wages, lower prices, increase the nations stock of scientists and engineers, and maybe even create the next Google. Better yet, this plan wont cost the government a dime. In fact, it will save a lot of money. But few politicians are going to
22、 want to touch it. Heres the plan: More immigration. A pathway to legal status for undocumented immigrants. And a recognition that immigration policy is economic policy, and needs to be thought of as such. See what I meant about politicians not liking it? Economists will tell you that immigrants rai
23、se wages for the average native-born worker. Theyll tell you that they make things cheaper for us to buy here, and that if we didnt have immigrants for some of these jobs, the jobs would move to other countries. Theyll tell you that we should allow for much more highly skilled immigration, because t
24、hats about as close to a free lunch as youre likely to find. Theyll tell you that the people who should most want a path to legal status for undocumented immigrants are the low-income workers who are most opposed to such plans. And about all this, the economists are right. There are also noneconomic
25、 considerations, of course. Integrating cultures and nationalities is difficult. Undocumented immigrants raise issues of law and fairness. Border security is important. Those questions are important. Theyre just not the subject of this column. The mistake we make when thinking about the effect immig
26、rants have on our wages, says Giovanni Peri, an economist at the University of California at Davis who has studied the issue extensively, is we imagine an economy where the number of jobs is fixed. Then, if one immigrant comes in, he takes one of those jobs or forces a worker to accept a lower wage.
27、 But thats not how our economy works. With more laborparticularly more labor of different kindsthe economy grows larger. It produces more stuff. There are more workers buying things and that increases the total number of jobs. We understand perfectly well that Europe is in trouble because its low bi
28、rth rates mean fewer workers, and that means less economic growth. We ourselves worry that were not graduating enough scientists and engineers. But the economy doesnt care if it gets workers through birth rates or green cards. In fact, theres a sense in which green cards are superior. Economists sep
29、arate new workers into two categories: Those who “substitute“ for existing laborwere both construction workers, and the boss can easily swap you out for me; and those who “complement“ existing laboryoure a construction engineer and Im a construction worker. Immigrants, more so than U. S. -born worke
30、rs, tend to be in the second category, as the jobs you want to give to someone who doesnt speak English very well and doesnt have many skills are different from the jobs you give to people who are fluent and have more skills. But thats only half of their benefit. “Living standards are a function of
31、two things,“ says Michael Greenstone, director of the Hamilton Project, which is hosting a Washington conference on the economics of immigration next week. “Theyre a function of our wages and the prices of the goods we purchase. “ And immigrants reduce the prices of those goods. Patricia Cortes, an
32、economist at the University of Chicagos Booth School of Business, found that immigrants lowered the prices in “immigrant-intensive industries“ like housekeeping and gardening by about 10 percent. So our wages go up and the prices of the things we want to buy go down. We should remember, though, that
33、 the average worker isnt every worker. A study by Harvard economists George Borjas and Lawrence Katz found that although immigrants raised native wages overall, they slightly hurt the 8 percent of workers without a high-school education and those with a college education. A subsequent study by Peri
34、looked harder at the ways immigrant labor differed from native labor and found that all groups of workers saw a benefit from immigrantsthough unskilled workers saw less of a benefit than highly skilled workers. And unskilled workers face even tougher competition from undocumented immigrants who, bec
35、ause their status is so tenuous, will accept pay beneath the minimum wage. And they are unlikely to complain about safety regulations or work conditions. That takes unskilled immigrants from being a bit cheaper than unskilled natives and makes them a lot cheaperwhich makes employers likelier to hire
36、 them for jobs that native workers could do better. This suggests, first, that American workers would be better off if we figured out a way to take the 12 million undocumented immigrants and give them legal status, and second, that we might want to give them more direct help if were going to increas
37、e immigration. Both are possiblejust politically difficult. Our immigration policy should be primarily oriented around our national goals. And one goal is to have the worlds most innovative and dynamic economy. Its never going to be the case that each and every one of the planets most talented indiv
38、iduals is born on American soil. But those born elsewhere could be lured here. People like living here. We should be leveraging that advantage, mercilessly roaming the globe, finding the most talented people and attracting them to our country. When we have the best talent, we have the best innovatio
39、ns. Thats how we landed Google, Intel, and the atomic bomb. Immigrants are about twice as likely as native-born Americans to start a small business, and theyre 30 percent more likely to apply for a patent. 6 Which of the following best indicates the main idea of the passage? （ A） Immigration is an e
40、conomic policy as well as a politic policy. （ B） Immigration will raise wages for the average native-born worker. （ C） Immigration helps the economy and most American workers. （ D） Immigration policy should be primarily oriented around the national goals. 7 We can learn from the fourth paragraph tha
41、t_. （ A） immigration will bring about noneconomic benefits （ B） immigration will bring about some social problems （ C） immigration will raise issues of law and fairness （ D） immigration should be considered carefully 8 Which of the following is NOT the benefit of immigration? （ A） Immigration will h
42、elp the economy grow and increase the total number of jobs. （ B） Immigration will increase the wages and decrease the prices of goods. （ C） Immigration will make skilled native workers face even tougher competition. （ D） Immigration will attract the most talented people to the country. 9 Who will su
43、ffer most from immigration? （ A） Immigrants. （ B） Average Americans. （ C） Unskilled American workers. （ D） Highly skilled American workers. 10 The author is most probably_. （ A） a scientist （ B） an economist （ C） a politician （ D） a sociologist 10 For the first time in decades, researchers are repor
44、ting a significant drop worldwide in the number of women dying each year from pregnancy and childbirth, to about 342,900 in 2008 from 526,300 in 1980. The findings, published in the medical journal The Lancet, challenge the prevailing view of maternal mortality as an intractable problem that has def
45、ied every effort to solve it. “The overall message, for the first time in a generation, is one of persistent and welcome progress,“ the journals editor, Dr. Richard Horton, wrote in a comment accompanying the article, published online on Monday. The study cited a number of reasons for the improvemen
46、t: lower pregnancy rates in some countries; higher income, which improves nutrition and access to health care; more education for women; and the increasing availability of “skilled attendants“people with some medical trainingto help women give birth. Improvements in large countries like India and Ch
47、ina helped to drive down the overall death rates. But some advocates for womens health tried to pressure The Lancet into delaying publication of the new findings, fearing that good news would detract from the urgency of their cause, Dr. Horton said in a telephone interview. “I think this is one of t
48、hose instances when science and advocacy can conflict,“ he said. Dr. Horton said the advocates, whom he declined to name, wanted the new information held and released only after certain meetings about maternal and child health had already taken place. He said the meetings included one at the United
49、Nations this week, and another to be held in Washington in June, where advocates hope to win support for more foreign aid for maternal health from Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton. Other meetings of concern to the advocates are the Pacific Health Summit in June, and the United Nations General Assembly meeting in December. “People who have spent many years committed to the issue of maternal health were understandably worried that these figures could divert attention from an issue that they care p
