All areas of the world face a nurses shortage. But the shortage is most severe in developing countries. Many of their nurses move to the more developed nations for better pay, better working conditions and better chances for career development. For example, nearly 2,000 nurses left the Caribbean between 2002 and 2006.
The Caribbean nations currently have about 1 nurse for every 1,000 people. The ratio(比例) of nurses to population is about 10 times higher in the United States and countries in the European Union(EU). Now, more than 21,000 nurses who trained in the Caribbean are working in the United States, Canada and Britain.
Gaetan Lafortune is an official of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development(O.E.C.D) in Paris. He says the nurses shortage also affects industrialized countries. He says, “There is concern in most O.E.C.D.countries that the number of nurses is too small to meet the demand. And what is more worrying is that their concern is sort of growing.” Mr Lafortune says a large number of nurses are expected to retire within the next 10 years. At the same time, the health care needs of aging populations are expected to grow, intensifying the shortage of nurses.
Gaetan Lafortune said, “In the U.S., for instance, some researchers have found that there may be a shortage of close to a million nurses by 2020.” The United States is 1 of the 21 countries in the O.C.E.D. Gaetan Lafortune says in the recent years many of the countries increased their efforts to hire foreign nurses. As a result of that, O.E.C.D. countries were mainly exporting their shortage problem to countries that may have an even greater need for these nurses.What will be the main causes of the global nurses shortage in the next 10 years?
a. The demand for nurses will decrease.
b. Many nurses will be too old to work.
c. Many rich countries will hire more foreign nurses.
d. Nurses are often looked down upon.
e. Aging populations will increase rapidly
| A．a and b | B．b and c | C．b and e | D．c and d |
The underlined word “intensify” in para. 3 means “________”.
| A．strengthen | B．neglect | C．reduce | D．cause |
We know from this text that America and the EU countries ______.
| A．refuse to offer equal pay to foreign nurses |
| B．have at least one nurse out of 100 people |
| C．don’t like to train nurses of their own countries |
| D．have more serious nursing problems than the Caribbean nations |
What does the text mainly tell us?
| A．Nursing is no longer a worthwhile profession in most countries. |
| B．The different attitudes towards nursing in different countries. |
| C．Nurses shortage will result in serious consequences. |
| D．The health care industry needs more nurses. |
It is difficult for doctors to help a person with a hurt brain. Without enough blood, the brain lives only three to five minutes. Sometimes the hurt brain gets better by itself. More often the doctors can't fix the hurt brain. Sometimes they are afraid to try something to help. It is dangerous to work on the brain. The doctor might make the person worse if he works on the brain.
Dr. Robert J. White, a famous professor and doctor, thinks he knows a way to help. He thinks doctors should try to make the brain become very cold. If it is very cold, the brain can live without blood for 30 minutes. This gives the doctors a longer time to do something for the brain.
Dr. White tried his idea on 13 monkeys. First he taught them to do different jobs. Then he opera-ted on them. He made the monkeys' blood go through a machine. The machine cooled the blood. Then the machine sent the blood back to the monkeys' brains. When the brain temperature was 10 degrees. Dr. White stopped the blood to the brain. After 30 minutes he turned the blood back on. He warmed the blood again. After their operations, the monkeys were like they were before. They were healthy and busy. Each one could still do the jobs the doctor had taught them.
Dr. White's idea works well on the monkeys. Are there other problems with human beings? Dr. White thinks doctors will use his idea on human beings. He thinks it will help people who have heart problems, too. A person doesn't have to die when his heart stops? doctors can start it again. The problem comes when the brain is without blood for three to five minutes—the person has a living body, but a dead brain. Maybe in the future, doctors will try Dr. White's idea. When the person's heart stops, the doctors will quickly try to cool the brain. They will have 30 minutes to start the heart again. Maybe there will be no problem with the brain. People probably die when __________.
| A．their brain dies |
| B．their heart stops |
| C．they stop breathing |
| D．their brain becomes very hot |
Dr. White thinks his idea about cooling the brain will work because __________.
| A．he has tried it on people |
| B．he has tried it on monkeys |
| C．he has tried it on heart problems |
| D．he has tried it on himself |
Which of the following is not true?
| A．Doctors can begin the heart again in five minutes. |
| B．Doctors can begin the heart again after 30 minutes. |
| C．Doctors can change patients' hearts. |
| D．Doctors can change a person's face. |
According to the writer，__________.
| A．it is not difficult to repair the brain damage |
| B．it is worse to make a mistake on the brain than any other part of the body |
| C．brain is not an important part in one's body |
| D．brain doesn't need blood |
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 (连通性)is being used 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 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 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. The writer mainly talks about _____ .
| A．the use of telemedicine |
| B．the online doctors |
| C．medical care and treatment |
| D．communication improvement |
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 |
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 will become cheaper in the future. |
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 |
When Gretch en Baxter gets home from work as a New York City book editor, she checks her cellphone at the door. "I think we are attached to these devices (装置)in a way that is not always positive, " says Baxter, who'd rather focus at home on her husband and 12-year-old daughter. "It's there but we get crazy sometimes and we don't know where it should stop. "
Americans are connected at unprecedented (前所未有的)levels—93% now use cellphones or wireless devices; one-third of those are "smartphones" that allow users to surf the Internet and check e-mails, among other things. The benefits are obvious： checking messages on the road, staying in touch with friends and family, efficiently using time once spent waiting around.
The downside： Often, we're effectively disconnecting from those in the same room.
That's why, despite all the technology that makes communicating easier than ever, 2010 was the Year We Stopped Talking to One Another. From texting at dinner to posting on Facebook at work or checking e-mails while on a date, the connectivity revolution is creating a lot of divided attention. Many analysts say it's time to step back and reassess.
"What we're going to see in the future is new opportunities for people to be connected like never before, " says Scott Campbell, assistant professor of communication studies at the University of Michigan, who studies the social implications (暗示)of using mobile devices. "It can be a good thing. But I also see the traditional social structure is getting somewhat torn apart. "
Sherry Turkic, director of the MIT Initiative on Technology and Self in Cambridge, Mass, wants to remind people that technology can be turned off. "Our human purpose is to really have connections with people," she says. "We have to reclaim (收回)it. It's not going to happen naturally." According to the first paragraph, Gretchen Baxter thinks _____ .
| A．cellphones are not always helpful |
| B．we benefit a lot from the invention of cellphones |
| C．using cellphones too much may be bad for health |
| D．cellphones play an important role in her life |
Which of the following is TRUE according to the passage?
| A．People communicate more now than in the past. |
| B．Using mobile devices can focus people's attention quickly. |
| C．93% of Americans often use cellphones to surf the Internet. |
| D．The use of mobile devices has a negative effect on the traditional social structure. |
What is Sherry Turkle’s attitude towards using mobile devices?
| A．Positive. |
| B．Negative. |
| C．Confused. |
| D．Uncertain. |
The main purpose of the passage is to tell readers that _____ .
| A．something must be done for people to get a real connection with others |
| B．cellphones may be replaced by new devices |
| C．cellphones should be turned off on some occasions |
| D．people should have more connections with others |
Function of Mass Media
Mass media are tools of communication. Mass media allow us to record and pass information rap-idly to a large, scattered(分散的）audience. They extend our ability to talk to each other by helping us overcome barriers caused by time and space.
There are various ways in which mass media make daily life easier for us. First, they inform and help us keep a watch on our world. They gather and pass on information we would be unlikely or unable to get on our own.
Second, mass media help us to arrange time and life. What we talk about and what we think about are greatly influenced by the media. When people get together, they tend to talk about certain happenings in the newspapers or on TV. Because we are exposed(暴露）to different points of view through different kinds of media every day, we are able to evaluate(评价）all sides of a certain issue.
Third, the media are used to persuade people. A good example is advertisements through the media. Newspapers, magazines and TV are filled with all kinds of colorful, persuasive advertisements. Though many advertisements may not say openly that they want you to buy a certain product, they describe their products in such a way that you may want to buy them.
Fourth, the media also entertain. All of the media make some effort to entertain their audience. For instance, even though the newspaper is primarily a medium of information, it also contains entertain-ment features(特征）. Television, motion pictures, fiction books and some radio stations and magazines are devoted mainly to entertainment. It is estimated that in the future, the entertainment
function of mass media will become even more important than it is now. This passage mainly tells us __________.
| A．something about the function of mass media |
| B．something about the development of mass media |
| C．how the media entertain us |
| D．the types of mass media |
How many ways in which mass media help make daily life easier are mentioned in this passage?
| A．Two. |
| B．Three. |
| C．Four. |
| D．Five. |
It can be known from the passage that __________.
| A．from mass media, we know what is happening in the world |
| B．sometimes we arrange our time and life according to mass media |
| C．mass media's main purpose is to pass the information of advertisements |
| D．mass media can make people feel easy |
From the passage we know that __________.
| A．mass media are the only tools of communication |
| B．mass media make our life much more difficult |
| C．the media tell people truth at any time |
| D．in the future mass media will make us more relaxed |
Games originally are entertainment. Contem-porary games are very realistic and for this reason they are a source of great experience for the player and develop the imagination. Games are entertain-ment and even more than that. The statistics (统计）of the New York University led by Green claim that the player preferring active games get improvement of some types of brain activity. In particular, game players deal with problems of simulta-neously(同时地） tracking several moving objects at the average level of 30% better than people who do not play active computer video games. The "gaming" violent experience may not be the cause of violent behavior in reality. None of the playing experience will become the priority in making important decisions concerning problems in real life. A game is an abstraction(抽象概念）. A player gets abstract tasks and acts according to abstract rules.
Games are also the possibility to be whatever a person wants to be and to rest from the outside world for some time. But what if a person gets so much excited with the game scenes that he becomes violent in reality? Then, it proves that the games cause people to become violent in reality. But a psychologically healthy person will never confuse these two different worlds. A game is a virtual world with visual images very similar to human's. These images are nothing but playing obstacles(障碍）. A game may potentially give the opportunity to "destroy the obstacles”that may not be destroyed according to the rules but it is more about personal choice whether to do it or not. This leads us to the conclusion that violence is not a consequence but the cause. People who are originally prone to violence may get into a temper by games and perform violence in the “ real world ”. But in this case violence in games is just a simple justification(正当的理由）of the violent nature of the player. The passage is __________.
| A．a story |
| B．a descriptive writing |
| C．an argumentative writing |
| D．a scientific essay |
In the first paragraph the author used the statistics to prove that __________.
| A．games can provide experience for the players |
| B．games can help develop players' imagination |
| C．games can cause violent behavior |
| D．games are more than entertainment |
What is the author's attitude towards the "computer games”？
| A．"Violent games" can lead to the performance of violence in the real world. |
| B．Violence is not a consequence of the “ computer games” but the cause. |
| C．Games are just entertainment and nothing more. |
| D．The virtual world and the real world are just the same. |
The best title for this passage is __________.
| A．Violent games cause violence |
| B．Games-resulting in violence? |
| C．The cause of violence |
| D．The consequence of games |
粤公网安备 44130202000953号