1、专业英语八级（阅读）模拟试卷 1及答案与解析 0 Countless medical studies have concluded that playing too many video games can be harmful to ones health. Now, however, it turns out that one of the more popular video-game consoles on the market, the Xbox 360, could be used to save lives. A computer scientist at the Univers
2、ity of Warwick in England has devised a way to use an Xbox 360 to detect heart defects and help prevent heart attacks. The new tool has the potential to revolutionize the medical industry because it is both faster and cheaper than the computer systems that are currently used by scientists to perform
3、 complex heart research. The system, detailed in a study in the August edition of the Journal of Computational Biology and Chemistry, is based on a video-game demo created by Simon Scarle two years ago when he was a software engineer at Microsofts Rare studio, the division of the U.S.-based company
4、that designs games for the Xbox 360. Scarle modified a chip in the console so that instead of producing graphics for the game, it now delivers data tracking how electrical signals in the heart move around damaged cardiac cells. This creates a model of the heart that allows doctors to identify heart
5、defects or conditions such as arrhythmia, a disturbance in the normal rhythm of the heart that causes it to pump less effectively. “This is a clever use of a processing chip . to speed up calculations of heart rhythm. What used to take hours can be calculated in seconds, without having to employ an
6、extremely expensive, high-performance computer,“ Denis Noble, director of Computational Physiology at Oxford University, tells TIME. To create a heart model now, researchers must use supercomputers or a network of PCs to crunch millions of mathematical equations relating to the proteins, cells and t
7、issues of the heart, a time-consuming and costly process. Scarles Xbox system can deliver the same results at a rate five times faster and 10 times more cheap, according to the study. “These game consoles arent just glorified toys. They are pieces of very powerful computing hardware,“ Scarle says. “
8、I can see this . being most useful for students and early-career scientists to just quickly and cheaply grab that extra bit of computing power they otherwise wouldnt be able to get.“ Scarle attributes his breakthrough creation to his unusual background of working as a soft-ware engineer in the gamin
9、g industry and performing electrocardio-dynamics research at the University of Sheffield in England. The idea for the heart-modeling tool came from a “little shooter game“ he developed at Microsoft in which a player tries to gun down enemies in an arena meant to resemble a heart. “I did a game-ified
10、 version of my old cardiac code. I could actually present some proper science based on the cool things us game developers do,“ Scarle says. The Xbox 360 isnt the only video-game console that is being used for scientific research. At the University of Massachusetts campus in Dartmouth, scientists are
11、 using Sony PlayStations to simulate black-hole collisions to try to solve the mystery of what happens when a supermassive black hole swallows a star. So perhaps parents shouldnt be too worried if their children are spending an inordinate amount of time playing video games. Who knows, todays Grand T
12、heft Auto or Halo addict may end up discovering a new moon around Saturn or finding a cure for cancer. 1 Which of the following is NOT true about the Xbox 360? （ A） It is a popular video-game. （ B） It was originally developed to detect heart defects. （ C） It is a good example that video games can be
13、nefit human beings. （ D） It is preferred by the medical industry in terms of its speed and cost. 2 What can be inferred from the passage? （ A） The author criticized the gaming industry. （ B） The author doubts if video games can be beneficial. （ C） The author believes that video games are good for on
14、es health. （ D） The author believes that video games can help scientific research if properly used. 3 What does “inordinate“ mean in Paragraph 9? （ A） limited （ B） some （ C） large （ D） excessive 4 What is the authors attitude toward playing video games? （ A） disgusting （ B） full of hatred （ C） open-
15、minded （ D） disapproving 5 Which of the following is the best title for the passage? （ A） Xbox: A Kind of New Video Games （ B） Xbox: A Kind of Magical Video Games （ C） How Xbox Can Help Fight Heart Disease （ D） Playing Video Games Can Benefit Children 5 Since early November, cases of H1N1 have conti
16、nued to decline nationwide, and scientists keeping track of the numbers say that as pandemics go, 2009 H1N1 may turn out to be a mild one at least for the time being. The question now on health officials minds is: Will there be a second wave of cases in the new year? The answer depends on whom you a
17、sk. “We took an informal poll of about a dozen of some of the worlds leading experts in influenza,“ Dr. Thomas Frieden, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), told reporters recently. “About half of them said, Yes, we think its likely that well have another surge in cases.
18、 About half said, No, we think its not likely. And one said, Flip a coin.“ It is an accurate reflection of how unpredictable the influenza virus can be. Although flu activity has been waning for the third week in a row, health officials warn that there are still four to five months left in the offic
19、ial influenza season, plenty of time for the virus to make its rounds and find new hosts. “The story of pandemics, and the story of H1N1 in general, is the story of persistent uncertainty where we never quite know what we are going to get or when,“ says Dr. Irwin Redlener, director of the National C
20、enter for Disaster Preparedness at the Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health. How severe the current H1N1 pandemic seems depends on what you use as a measuring stick. Compared with previous pandemics, like the 1918 Spanish flu, which killed 20 million people and infected up to 40% of t
21、he worlds population, or even the far less deadly 1957 and 1968 bouts with a strain of H1N1 influenza similar to the 2009 strain, things dont seem as bad this time around. Fewer people are getting severely ill when infected, and fewer have died or required hospitalization from the flu than in previo
22、us pandemics. Marc Lipsitch, an epidemiologist at the Harvard School of Public Health, and his colleagues studied the course of the 2009 H1N1 pandemic last spring in two cities New York and Minneapolis and determined that 0.048% of people who developed symptoms of H1N1 died, and 1.44% required hospi
23、talization. Based on that data, published in PLoS Medicine, Lipsitch anticipates far fewer deaths from 2009 H1N1 than was initially believed. By the end of the flu season in the spring of 2010, Lipsitch predicts, anywhere from 6,000 to 45,000 people will have died from H1N1 in the U.S., with the num
24、ber most likely to end up between 10,000 and 15,000. Those estimates are far below the death toll of the 1957 flu, which killed 69,800 people in the U.S., according to government figures, and smaller also than the early predictions for the 2009 H1N1 flu deaths, which ranged from 30,000 to 90,000. It
25、 is not clear, however, that past pandemics are an appropriate gauge for evaluating the current flu or that the new projections are based on complete data. The eventual death toll of 2009 H1N1 may be less grim than the outcomes of previous pandemics, but it should be noted that 90 years ago, and eve
26、n 40 years ago, health officials lacked the antiviral therapies and nationwide vaccination capabilities that are available today. That may have contributed to pandemics having a more devastating effect on the health of past populations. The new estimates are also less alarming than those provided al
27、so by Lipsitch to the Presidents Council of Advisers on Science and Technology last summer near the start of the pandemic. At the time, researchers had only patchy data on the number of people infected by, and seeking treatment for, the new flu. The initially bleak prediction of the impact of H1N1 w
28、ith up to 50% of the U.S. population becoming infected in the fall and winter of 2009, resulting in as many as 90,000 deaths was based on modeling of previous pandemics. Fortunately, the worst case scenario did not come to pass. “The worst case consistent with the data we have now is a lot milder th
29、an the worst case consistent with the data we had in the summer or spring,“ Lipsitch says. Still, Lipsitch and other health officials acknowledge that the 2009 H1N1 pandemic is not over. What worries health officials most is that as both seasonal and H1N1 flu viruses circulate among the population,
30、the two strains could recombine into a more virulent and aggressive version that could cause more widespread illness and even death. How viruses behave once they nestle into a host is completely unpredictable, but scientists know that in a lab dish, seasonal and H1N1 flu strains mix and match readil
31、y. “Im thinking we may have dodged a bullet here if in fact we dont get a more severe wave coming on the heels of the current wave,“ says Redlener. “But well see what happens.“ A second wave could still prove more deadly than the seasonal flu, especially for young children. To date, 189 children hav
32、e died of influenza in the U.S., the majority of them related to H1N1 infection, and that number is already higher than the total number of pediatric deaths attributed to flu in 2008. Lipsitch says that if current trends hold, H1N1 may end up causing as many influenza deaths, if not more, than the s
33、easonal flu, which kills about 36,000 Americans each year. Instead of hitting the elderly the hardest, though, most of the deaths may be among young children and infants. 6 What can be inferred from the passage? （ A） It is not as severe as experts expected. （ B） It is likely to have a second wave of
34、 H1N1. （ C） It is not likely to have a second wave of H1N1. （ D） No one knows for sure whether there will be a second wave of H1N1. 7 Which of the following words can best feature the H1N1 virus? （ A） fatal （ B） mild （ C） unpredictable （ D） severe 8 What can be inferred from Paragraph 6? （ A） H1N1 i
35、s different from past pandemics. （ B） Evaluated by past pandemics, H1N1 is not as severe. （ C） Compared with past pandemics, H1N1 is not so severe. （ D） It is hard to say if H1N1 is less severe than past pandemics. 9 Which of the following is the best title for this passage? （ A） The H1N1 Virus: How
36、 Does It Behave? （ B） The H1N1 Pandemic: Is It More Severe? （ C） The H1N1 Pandemic: Is a second wave Possible? （ D） The H1N1 Pandemic: Who Is Most Likely to Be the Victim? 10 Who is most likely to be the victim of H1N1? （ A） Adults under age 65. （ B） Young children. （ C） The elderly. （ D） Doctors. 1
37、0 The scientific name is the Holocene Age, but climatologists like to call our current climatic phase the Long Summer. The history of Earths climate has rarely been smooth. From the moment life began on the planet billions of years ago, the climate has swung drastically and often abruptly from one s
38、tate to another from tropical swamp to frozen ice age. Over the past 10,000 years, however, the climate has remained remarkably stable by historical standards: not too warm and not too cold, or Goldilocks weather. That stability has allowed Homo sapiens, numbering perhaps just a few million at the d
39、awn of the Holocene, to thrive; farming has taken hold and civilizations have arisen. Without the Long Summer, that never would have been possible. But as human population has exploded over the past few thousand years, the delicate ecological balance that kept the Long Summer going has become threat
40、ened. The rise of industrialized agriculture has thrown off Earths natural nitrogen and phosphorus cycles, leading to pollution on land and water, while our fossil-fuel addiction has moved billions of tons of carbon from the land into the atmosphere, heating the climate ever more. Now a new article
41、in the Sept. 24 issue of Nature says the safe climatic limits in which humanity has blossomed are more vulnerable than ever and that unless we recognize our planetary boundaries and stay within them, we risk total catastrophe. “Human activities have reached a level that could damage the systems that
42、 keep Earth in the desirable Holocene state,“ writes Jo-han Rockstrom, executive director of the Stockholm Environmental Institute and the author of the article. “The result could be irreversible and, in some cases, abrupt environmental change, leading to a state less conducive to human development.
43、“ Regarding climate change, for instance, Rockstrom proposes an atmospheric-carbon-concentration limit of no more than 350 parts per million (p.p.m.) meaning no more than 350 atoms of carbon for every million atoms of air. (Before the industrial age, levels were at 280 p.p.m.; currently theyre at 38
44、7 p.p.m. and rising.) That, scientists believe, should be enough to keep global temperatures from rising more than 2C above pre-industrial levels, which should be safely below a climatic tipping point that could lead to the wide-scale melting of polar ice sheets, swamping coastal cities. “Transgress
45、ing these boundaries will increase the risk of irreversible climate change,“ writes Rockstrom. Thats the impact of breaching only one of nine planetary boundaries that Rockstrom identifies in the paper. Other boundaries involve freshwater overuse, the global agricultural cycle and ozone loss. In eac
46、h case, he scans the state of science to find ecological limits that we cant violate, lest we risk passing a tipping point that could throw the planet out of whack for human beings. Its based on a theory that ecological change occurs not so much cumulatively, but suddenly, after invisible thresholds
47、 have been reached. Stay within the lines, and we might just be all right. In three of the nine cases Rockstrom has pointed out, however climate change, the nitrogen cycle and species loss weve already passed his threshold limits. In the case of global warming, we havent yet felt the full effects, R
48、ockstrom says, because carbon acts gradually on the climate but once warming starts, it may prove hard to stop unless we reduce emissions sharply. Ditto for the nitrogen cycle, where industrialized agriculture already has humanity pouring more chemicals into the land and oceans than the planet can p
49、rocess, and for wildlife loss, where we risk biological collapse. “We can say with some confidence that Earth cannot sustain the current rate of loss without significant erosion of ecosystem resilience,“ says Rockstrom. The paper offers a useful way of looking at the environment, especially for global policy makers. As the world grapples with climate change this week at the U.N. and G-20 summit, some clearly posted speed limits from scientists could help politicians craft global deals on carbon and other shared environmental threats. Its t
