The global financial crisis is likely to cause increased mental health problems as people struggle to deal with poverty and unemployment, the World Health Organization warned Thursday．
Hundreds of millions of people worldwide are already affected by mental problems such as depression and bipolar disorders （带躁狂的抑郁症） and the current market meltdown （崩溃） could worsen feelings of despair among people who can't stand such illnesses．
The United Nations agency said the impact could be especially marked for those living in low and middle income countries where access to treatment is often limited．
"We should not be surprised at the turbulence （动荡） and likely consequences of the current financial crisis．Now we are seeing a huge gap in taking care of people in great need," WHO director general Margaret Chan told at a meeting of mental health experts．
"It should not come as a surprise that we continue to see more stresses, suicides and mental disorders," Chan warned．
Benedetto Saraceno, director of WHO's mental health, said mental health disorders affected one in four people at some point in their lives．
Mental and neurological disorders are often chronic （慢性） and disabling, he said．Nearly 1 million people commit suicide worldwide every year, a large part of them are young adults．
Asked about the financial crisis, Saraceno said, "Poverty can be the consequence of such events, the debts, despair and sense of loss that may reach middle and lower classes．Even the poor can be affected by this crisis．"
"There is clear evidence that suicide is linked to financial disasters．I am not talking about the millionaire's jumping out of the window but about poor people," he said．The global crisis could be expected to affect the "stability of communities and families", according to Saraceno．
60．According to the passage, the chief result of the worldwide financial crisis is that ．
A．more people will be poorer
B．more people will be out of jobs
C．more people will suffer from mental problems
D．more people will commit suicide
61．The United Nations agency worried that ．
A．more rich people would commit suicide
B．the financial crisis might especially influence developing or underdeveloped countries
C．the current market meltdown could worsen feelings of despair
D．hundreds of millions of people in the world were already affected by mental problems
62．It can be inferred that ．
A．far more work should be done to help those who are mentally ill
B．it will be surprising to see more people commit suicide
C．a mental disorder is a chronic disease
D．many more young adults commit suicide worldwide than people of other ages
63．The best title for the passage is ．
A．Global Financial Crisis．
B．Mental Disorders Resulting From Global Financial Crisis．
C．Suicides as a Result of Market Meltdown．
D．Chronic Mental Disorders．
Weather changes when the temperature and the amount of water in the atmosphere change. We can see and feel water coming from the atmosphere when we have rain. But the water must somehow get back to the atmosphere. Meteorologists call this the water cycle.
There are many stages in the water cycle. Rain falls when water vapour in clouds condenses(凝结). Drops of water form and fall to the ground. The water soaks into the ground and feeds streams and rivers. A lot of rain falls into the sea. The heat of the sun evaporates some of the water in the ground and in the rivers, lakes, and the sea. It changes the liquid water into water vapour. The vapour rises onto the air. Water vapour is normally invisible. On a very damp or humid day, however, you can sometimes see water vapour rising from a puddle(水坑) or pond in a mist(薄雾) above the water. Water vapour also gets into the air from living things. Trees and other plants take in water through their roots and give off water vapour from their leaves. People and land animals drink water and breathe out water vapour. In all these ways the water returns to the air. There it gathers to form clouds and condenses to form rain. The rain falls to earth, and the cycle starts again. It continues even if snow or hail(冰雹) fall instead because both eventually melt to form water. The amount of water vapour in the air depends on the temperature. The air is more moist(潮湿) in the tropics(热带) than in the cold polar regions.
1. What is the main idea of the passage?
A. Water cycle. B. Water vapour.
C. How rain forms. D. Water, vapour, rain.
2. How many ways of the water returning to the air are discussed in the text?
A. Two. B. Three.C. Four.D. Five.
3. Whether water vapour can be seen or not depends on _______.
A. how much water is evaporated B. how good your eyes are
C. in which way water is evaporated D. climate or weather
4. From the passage we get to know _______.
A. there is more water vapour in the air in the tropics than in cold polar regions
B. there is more water vapour in the air in cold polar region than in the tropics
C. it gets more rain in the tropics than in cold polar regions because there is less vapour
D. the amount of water vapour in the air depends on how often it rains
To get cash out in the 21st century, you won’t need a bank card, a PIN(个人识别编号) or even have to move a finger. You will simply have to look the cash machine straight in the eye, declares National Cash Registers, a multinational company that makes automated teller machines, or ATMs. NCR has shown its first example machine that is believed to be the future of banking. Instead of asking you for your PIN on a screen, the Super Teller-Stella for short, asks you orally through a loudspeaker to look straight ahead while an infrared camera turns to your head, then your eye, and finally takes an infrared photograph of your iris(虹膜). For identification(识别) purposes, an iris picture is better than a fingerprint, with around 256 noticeable characteristics compared with 40 for fingerprints. This means that the chances of someone else being recognized in your place is about 1 in 1020. Once you’ve been identified, Stella greets you by name and says: “Would you like cash or a statement?” An infrared port allows the machine to send a bank statement straight to your pocket computer.
1. What does this passage mainly talk about?
A. A new medical instrument
B. A new type of talking machine.
C. A new type of cash machine.
D. National Cash Register
2. What is this new machine called?
A. Stella B. ATM C. PIN D. NCR
3. When you want to get cash out in the 21st century, you will _______.
A. need a bank card B. have to put in your PIN
C. move your finger D. just look directly at the teller machine
Motherhood may make women smarter and may help prevent dementia(痴呆) in old age by bathing the brain in protective hormones(荷尔蒙) , U.S. reseachers reported on Thursday.
Tests on rats show that those who raise two or more litters of pups do considerably better in tests of memory and skills than rats who have no babies, and their brains show changes that suggest they may be protected against diseases such as Alzheimer’s(早老痴呆症). University of Richmond psychology professor Craig Kinsley believes his findings will translate into humans.
“Our research shows that the hormones of pregnancy(怀孕) are protecting the brain, including estrogen(雌激素), which we know has many neuroprotective (保护神经的) effects,” Kinsley said.
“It’s rat data but humans are mammals just like these animals are mammals,” he added in a telephone interview. “They go through pregnancy and hormonal changes.”
Kinsley said he hoped public health officials and researchers will look to see if having had children protects a woman from Alzheimer’s and other forms of age-related brain decline.
“When people think about pregnancy, they think about what happens to babies and the mother from the neck down,” said Kinsley, who presented his findings to the annual meeting of the Society of Neuroscience in Orlando, Florida.
“They do not realize that hormones are washing on the brain. If you look at female animals who have never gone through pregnancy, they act differently toward young. But if she goes through pregnancy, she will sacrifice her life for her infant—that is a great change in her behavior that showed in genetic alterations(改变) to the brain.”
1. How do scientists know “Motherhood may make women smarter”?
A. Some researchers have told them.
B. Many women say so.
C. They know it by experimenting on rats.
D. They know it through their own experience.
2. What does the phrase “litters of pups” mean in the second paragraph?
A. Baby rats. B. Animals. C. Old rats. D. Grown-up rats.
3. What can protect the brain of a woman according to the passage?
A. Estrogen. B. The hormones of pregnancy.
C. More exercise. D. Taking care of children.
4. “It’s rat data but humans are mammals just like these animals are mammals.” What does the sentence suggest?
A. The experiments on the rats have nothing to do with humans.
B. The experiments on the rats are very important for animals.
C. The experiments on the rats are much the same on humans.
D. The experiments on the rats are much the same on other animals.
5. Which title is the best for this passage?
A. Do You Want to Be Smarter?
B. Motherhood Makes Women Smarter
C. Mysterious Hormones
D. An Important Study
Scientists are uncovering the secrets of two port cities lost under the waters of the Mediterranean Sea, a researcher said yesterday.
Herakleion and Menouthis were rich and proud cities until something reduced them to rubble (碎石) and buried them in the mud beneath 30 feet of sea water, French underwater explorer Franck Goddio said at the American Geophysical Union conference.
“This is a mystery that is ongoing,” said Goddio, a founder of the European Institute of Marine Archeology, a Paris-based underwater research organization backed by the wealthy Hilti Foundation of Liechtenstein(列支敦士登基金会).
The destruction of the twin port cities has haunted Goddio ever since he happened upon the site about 15 miles from Alexandria while exploring sunken ships from Napoleon’s fleet.
Goddio and his group of expert divers, marine archeologists(海洋考古学家) and others, are using high powered vacuums, satellite navigation systems and sophisticated sonar(声纳) to excavate(挖掘) the sunken cities from underneath a carpet of silt about one meter (three feet) high.
Walls of shops, remains of streets and gold artifacts have been found and recovered.
Some experts believe that the port cities were destroyed by a series of massive earthquakes, much like the quakes scientists believe felled Troy(特洛伊城), Jericho and other ancient cities. The uniform direction of the collapsed columns and walls suggest an earthquake, Goddio said, but no fault lines have been found nearby.
Other researchers believe a massive wave, caused by either an offshore earthquake or a distant underwater landslide, could explain the catastrophe. Still others think rising seas and a shift in the Nile River outlet doomed the cities.
“The argument, as you can see, continues,” Goddio said.
1. The reason why the two port cities disappeared under the waters of Mediterranean Sea is that ______.
A. the two port cities were destroyed by huge earthquakes
B. the disappearance of the two port cities was caused by underwater landslide
C. rising seas and a shift in the Nile River outlet doomed the cities
D. the story didn’t tell us at all
2. From the story we can draw a conclusion that _______.
A. the two port cities were famous for their wealth and the mystery
B. the two cities belonged to France
C. some mysterious creatures from other planets destroyed the two cities
D. the American Geophysical Union conference was once held in one of the two cities
3. This article is probably from _______.
A. a scientific magazine
B. a report to the government
C. a school text book
D. a scientific report in a newspaper
(1—3 DBD)
Want a glance of the future of health care? Take a look at the way the various networks of people about patient care are being connected to one another, and how this new connectivity is being exploited to deliver medicine to the patient —no matter where he or she may be.
Online doctors offering advice based on normal symptoms(症状) are the most obvious example. Increasingly, however, remote diagnosis(远程诊断) will be based on real physiological data(生理数据) from the actual patient. A group from the University of Kentucky has shown that by using personal data assistance plus a mobile phone, it is perfectly practical to send a patient’s important signs over the telephone. With this kind of equipment, the cry asking whether there was a doctor in the house could well be a thing of the past.
Other medical technology groups are working on applying telemedicine to rural(countryside) care. And at least one team wants to use telemedicine as a tool for disaster need—especially after earthquakes. On the whole, the trend is towards providing global access to medical data and experts’ opinions.
But there is one problem. Bandwidth(宽带) is the limiting factor for sending complex(复杂的) medical pictures around the world — CT photos being one of the biggest bandwidth users. Communication satellites may be able to deal with the short-term needs during disasters such as earthquakes or wars. But medicine is looking towards both the second-generation Internet and third-generation mobile phones for the future of remote medical service.
Doctors have met to discuss computer-based tools for medical diagnosis, training and telemedicine. With the falling price of broadband communications, the new technologies should start a new time when telemedicine and the sharing of medical information, experts’ opinions and diagnosis are common.
1. The writer chiefly talks about _______.
A. the use of telemedicine B. the on-lined doctors
C. medical care and treatment D. communication improvement
2. The basis of remote diagnosis will be _______.
A. personal data assistance
B. some words of a patient
C. real physiological information
D. medical pictures from the Internet
3. Which of the following statements is true according to the text？
A. Patients don’t need doctors in hospitals any more.
B. It is impossible to send a patient’s signs over the telephone.
C. Many teams use telemedicine dealing with disasters now.
D. Broadband communications willbecome cheaper in the future.
4. The “problem” in the fourth paragraph refers to the fact that _______.
A. bandwidth isn’t big enough to send complex medical pictures
B. the second-generation of Internet has not become popular yet
C. communication satellites can only deal with short-term needs
D. there is not enough equipment for spreading the medical care