It seems that politicians around the world are thinking about the health of their countries. While in China, Chen Zhu has announced his plans for a universal health service and reform across health services. Gordon Brown, the UK Prime Minister, has also announced he is planning to make some changes in our health service. The crux of Mr. Brown’s proposals is related to giving the NHS (National Health Service) a greater focus on prevention, rather than just curing patients. He is planning to introduce increased screening for common diseases such as heart disease, strokes and cancer, for example, breast cancer. In Britain there are 200,000 deaths a year from heart attacks and strokes, many of which might have been avoided if the condition had been known about. Initially, the diagnostic (诊断的) tests will be available for those who are vulnerable, or most likely to have the disease. One example is a plan to offer all men over 65 an ultrasound test to check for problems with the main artery (动脉), a condition which kills 3,000 men a year. The opposition have criticized Mr. Brown’s proposals, saying that they are just a trick, and claiming that there is no proper timetable for the changes. They also say that Mr. Brown is reducing the money available for the treatment of certain conditions while putting more money towards testing for them. The NHS was founded in 1948, and is paid for by taxation. The idea is that the rich pay more towards the health service than the poor. However, in recent years there has been a great increase in the use of private health care, and it’s much quicker. The NHS waiting lists for operations can be very long, so many people who can afford it choose to pay for medical care themselves. The author of this passage intends to tell us ______.
A. the NHS should be reformed right away
B. more and more people are dying from diseases
C. the plan to reform the NHS in the UK
D. the criticism of Mr. Brown’s proposals
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Conversation 2
Average.
B. Extremely bad.
C. Extremely goad.
D. There isn’t enough information given.
How should one invest a sum of money in these days of inflation Left in a bank it will hardly keep its value, however high the interest rate is. Only a brave man, or a very rich one, dares to buy and sell on the Stock Market. Today it seems that one of the best ways to protect your savings, and even increase your wealth is to buy beautiful objects from the past. Here I am going to offer some advice on collecting antique clocks, which I personally consider are among the most interesting of antiques. I sometimes wonder what a being from another planet might report back about our way of life. "The planet Earth is ruled by a mysterious creature that sits or stands in a room and makes a strange ticking sound. It has a face with twelve black marks and two hands. Men can do nothing without its permission, and it fastens its young round people’s wrists so that everywhere men go they are still under its control. This creature is the real master of Earth and men are its slaves. " Whether or not we are slaves of time today depends on our culture and personality, but it is believed that many years ago kings kept special slaves to tell the time. Certain men were very clever at measuring the time of day according to the beating of their own hearts. They were made to stand in a fixed place and every hour or so would shout the time. So it seems that the first clocks were human beings. However, men quickly found more convenient and reliable ways of telling the time. They learned to use the shadows cast by the sun. They marked the hours on candies, used sand in hour-glasses, and invented water-clocks. Indeed, any serious student of antiques should spend as much time as possible visiting palaces, stately homes and museums to see some of the finest examples of clocks from the past. Antique clocks could be very expensive, but one of the joys of collecting clocks is that it is still possible to find quite cheap ones for your own home. After all, if you are going to be ruled by the time, why not invest in air antique clock and perhaps make a future profit The purpose of the passage is ______.
A. to introduce the culture of antique clocks
B. to offer some advice on collecting antique clocks
C. to compare different ways to make a future profit
D. to tell people that we are the slaves of clocks
Trees should only be pruned (修剪) when there is a good and clear reason for doing so and, fortunately, the number of such reasons is small. Pruning involves cutting away of overgrown and unwanted branches, and the inexperienced gardener can be encouraged by the thought that more damage results from doing it unnecessarily than from leaving the trees to grow in their own ways. First, pruning may be done to make sure that trees have a desired shape or size. The object may be to get a tree of the right height, and at the same time to help the growth of small side branches which will thicken its appearance or give it a special shape. Secondly, pruning may be done to make the tree healthier. You may cut out diseased or dead wood, or branches that are rubbing against each other and thus causing wounds. The health of a tree may be encouraged by removing the branches that are locking up the centre and so preventing the free movement of air. One result of pruning is that an open wound is left on the tree and this provides an easy entry for diseases, but it is a wound that will heal (愈合). Often there is a race between the healing and the disease as to whether the tree will live or die, or that there is a period when the tree is at risk. It should be the aim of every gardener to reduce the risk as far as possible. It is essential to make the area which has been pruned smooth and clean, for healing will be slowed down by roughness. You should allow the cut surface to dry for a few hours and then paint it with one of the substances available from garden shops produced especially for this purpose. Pruning is usually done in winter, for then you can see the shape of the tree clearly without the interference (妨碍) from the leaves and it is, too, very unlikely that the cuts you make will bleed. If this does happen, it is, of course, impossible to paint them properly. What was the author’s purpose when writing this passage
A. To discuss different methods of pruning.
B. To introduce some common knowledge of pruning.
C. To explain how trees develop disease.
D. To give practical instruction for pruning a tree.
It seems that politicians around the world are thinking about the health of their countries. While in China, Chen Zhu has announced his plans for a universal health service and reform across health services. Gordon Brown, the UK Prime Minister, has also announced he is planning to make some changes in our health service. The crux of Mr. Brown’s proposals is related to giving the NHS (National Health Service) a greater focus on prevention, rather than just curing patients. He is planning to introduce increased screening for common diseases such as heart disease, strokes and cancer, for example, breast cancer. In Britain there are 200,000 deaths a year from heart attacks and strokes, many of which might have been avoided if the condition had been known about. Initially, the diagnostic (诊断的) tests will be available for those who are vulnerable, or most likely to have the disease. One example is a plan to offer all men over 65 an ultrasound test to check for problems with the main artery (动脉), a condition which kills 3,000 men a year. The opposition have criticized Mr. Brown’s proposals, saying that they are just a trick, and claiming that there is no proper timetable for the changes. They also say that Mr. Brown is reducing the money available for the treatment of certain conditions while putting more money towards testing for them. The NHS was founded in 1948, and is paid for by taxation. The idea is that the rich pay more towards the health service than the poor. However, in recent years there has been a great increase in the use of private health care, and it’s much quicker. The NHS waiting lists for operations can be very long, so many people who can afford it choose to pay for medical care themselves. Which of the following is the reason for the increasing private health care
A. People are paying more attention to their own health.
B. People are well off enough to pay their health care.
C. The NHS was not available for most of the people.
D. It’s not so convenient for people to go to the NHS for their health care.