Exactly where we will stand in the long war against disease by the year 2050 is impossible to say. (46) But if developments in research maintain their current pace, it seems likely that a combination of improved attention to dietary and environmental factors, along with advances in gene therapy and protein targeted drugs, will have virtually eliminated most major classes of disease.From an economic standpoint, the best news may be that these accomplishments .could be accompanied by a drop in health-care costs. (47) Costs may even fall as diseases ’are brought under control using pinpointed, short-term therapies now being developed. By 2050 there will be fewer hospitals, and surgical procedures will be largely restricted to the treatment of accidents and other forms of trauma. Spending on nonacute care, both in nursing facilities and in homes, will also fall sharply as more elderly people lead healthy lives until close to death.One result of medicine’s success in controlling disease will be a dramatic increase in life expectancy. (48) The extent of that increase is a highly speculative matter, but it is worth noting that medical science has already helped to make the very old (currently defined as those over 85 years of age) the fastest growing segment of the population. Between 1960 and 1995, the U.S. population as a whole increased by about 45%, while the segment over 85 years of age grew by almost 300%. (49) There has been a similar explosion in the population of centenarians, with the result that survival to the age of 100 is no longer the newsworthy feat that it was only a few decades ago. U.S. Census Bureau projections already forecast dramatic increase in the number of centenarians in the next 50 years: 4 million in 2050, compared with 37, 000 in 1990.(50) Although Census Bureau calculations project an increase in average life span of only eight years by the year 2050, some experts believe that the human life span should not begin to encounter any theoretical natural limits before 120. years. With continuing There has been a similar explosion in the population of centenarians, with the result that survival to the age of 100 is no longer the newsworthy feat that it was only a few decades ago.
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Standard English is the variety of English which is usually used in print and which is normally taught in schools and to non-native speakers learning the language. It is also the variety which is normally (1) by educated people and used in news broadcasts and other (2) situations. The difference between standard and nonstandard, it should be noted, has (3) in principle to do with differences between formal and colloquial (4) ; standard English has colloquial as well as formal variants.(5) , the standard variety of English is based on the London (6) of English that developed after the Norman Conquest resulted in the removal of the Court from Winchester to London. This dialect became the one (7) by the educated, and it was developed and promoted (8) a model, or norm, for wider and wider segments of society. It was also the (9) that was carried overseas, but not one unaffected by such export. Today, (10) English is arranged to the extent that tile grammar and vocabulary of English are (11) the same everywhere in the world where English is used; (12) among local standards is really quite minor, (13) the Singapore, South Africa, and Irish varieties are really very (14) different from one another so far as grammar and vocabulary are (15) .Indeed, Standard English is so powerful that it exerts a tremendous (16) on all local varieties, to the extent that many of long-established dialects of England have (17) much of their vigor and there is considerable pressure on them to be (18) . This latter situation is not unique (19) English: it is also true in other countries where processes of standardization are (20) .But it sometimes creates problems for speakers who try to strike some kind of compromise between local norms and national, even supranational ones. Read the following text. Choose the best word (s) for each numbered blank and mark A, B, C or D on ANSWER SHEET 1.13()
A. therefore
B. but
C. so that
D. nevertheless
Now, more than ever, it doesn’t matter who you are but what you look like. Janet was just twenty-five years old. She had a great job and seemed happy. She committed suicide. In her suicide note she wrote that she felt "un-pretty" and that no man ever loved her. Amy was just fifteen when hospitalized for eating disorders. She suffered from both anorexia and bulimia. She lost more than one hundred pounds in two months. Both victims battled problems with their body image and physical appearance. "Oh, I am too fat." "My butt is too big and my breast is too small." "I hate my body and I feel ugly." "I want to be beautiful." The number of men and women who feel these things about themselves is increasing dramatically. I can identify two main categories of body-image problems: additive versus subtractive. Those who enhance their appearance through cosmetic surgery fall into the additive group; those who hope to improve their looks through starvation belong to the subtractive category. Both groups have two things in common: they are never satisfied and are always obsessed. Eating disorders afflict as many as five to ten million women and one million men in the United States. One out of four female college students suffer from an eating disorder. But why Card Kirby, a mental health counselor of Nebraska university, says that body image and eating disorders are continuum addictions in which individuals seek to discover their identities. The idea that we should look a certain way and possess a certain shape is instilled in us at a very early age. Young girls not only play with Barbie dolls that display impossible, even comical, proportions, but they are also bombarded with images as well," We immediately identify physical attractiveness to mean success and happiness." The media can be blamed for contributing to various body image illnesses. We cannot walk into a bookstore without being exposed to perfect male and female bodies on the covers of magazines. We see such images every day--on commercials, billboards, on television, and in movies. These images continually remind women and young girls that if you want to be happy you must be beautiful, and if you want to be beautiful you must be thin. This ideal may be the main objective of the fashion, cosmetic, diet, fitness, and plastic surgery industries that stand to make millions from body-image anxiety. But does it work for us Are women who lose weight in order to be toothpick thin really happy Are women who have had breast implants really happy What truly defines a person Is it his or her physical appearance or is it character Beauty is supposed to be "skin deep". But we can all be beautiful inside. People are killing themselves for unrealistic physical standards dictated by our popular culture. We need to be made more aware of this issue. To be celebrity-thin is not to be beautiful nor happy. It can also be unattractive. Individuals who are obsessed with their bodies are only causing damage to themselves and their loved ones. But as long as the media maintain their message that "Thin is in. ",then the medical and psychological problems our society faces will continue to grow. What issue is this passage mainly concerned with
A. People suffer from various medical and psychological problems today.
Businessmen benefit a lot by producing and selling diet products.
C. Physical attractiveness tends to be valued more than anything else in many people’s life.
D. The mass media are always misleading.
Standard English is the variety of English which is usually used in print and which is normally taught in schools and to non-native speakers learning the language. It is also the variety which is normally (1) by educated people and used in news broadcasts and other (2) situations. The difference between standard and nonstandard, it should be noted, has (3) in principle to do with differences between formal and colloquial (4) ; standard English has colloquial as well as formal variants.(5) , the standard variety of English is based on the London (6) of English that developed after the Norman Conquest resulted in the removal of the Court from Winchester to London. This dialect became the one (7) by the educated, and it was developed and promoted (8) a model, or norm, for wider and wider segments of society. It was also the (9) that was carried overseas, but not one unaffected by such export. Today, (10) English is arranged to the extent that tile grammar and vocabulary of English are (11) the same everywhere in the world where English is used; (12) among local standards is really quite minor, (13) the Singapore, South Africa, and Irish varieties are really very (14) different from one another so far as grammar and vocabulary are (15) .Indeed, Standard English is so powerful that it exerts a tremendous (16) on all local varieties, to the extent that many of long-established dialects of England have (17) much of their vigor and there is considerable pressure on them to be (18) . This latter situation is not unique (19) English: it is also true in other countries where processes of standardization are (20) .But it sometimes creates problems for speakers who try to strike some kind of compromise between local norms and national, even supranational ones. Read the following text. Choose the best word (s) for each numbered blank and mark A, B, C or D on ANSWER SHEET 1.12()
A. variation
B. standardization
C. unification
D. transformation
Standard English is the variety of English which is usually used in print and which is normally taught in schools and to non-native speakers learning the language. It is also the variety which is normally (1) by educated people and used in news broadcasts and other (2) situations. The difference between standard and nonstandard, it should be noted, has (3) in principle to do with differences between formal and colloquial (4) ; standard English has colloquial as well as formal variants.(5) , the standard variety of English is based on the London (6) of English that developed after the Norman Conquest resulted in the removal of the Court from Winchester to London. This dialect became the one (7) by the educated, and it was developed and promoted (8) a model, or norm, for wider and wider segments of society. It was also the (9) that was carried overseas, but not one unaffected by such export. Today, (10) English is arranged to the extent that tile grammar and vocabulary of English are (11) the same everywhere in the world where English is used; (12) among local standards is really quite minor, (13) the Singapore, South Africa, and Irish varieties are really very (14) different from one another so far as grammar and vocabulary are (15) .Indeed, Standard English is so powerful that it exerts a tremendous (16) on all local varieties, to the extent that many of long-established dialects of England have (17) much of their vigor and there is considerable pressure on them to be (18) . This latter situation is not unique (19) English: it is also true in other countries where processes of standardization are (20) .But it sometimes creates problems for speakers who try to strike some kind of compromise between local norms and national, even supranational ones. Read the following text. Choose the best word (s) for each numbered blank and mark A, B, C or D on ANSWER SHEET 1.11()
A. not
B. very
C. much
D. hardly