1.The failure of a high-profile cholesterol drug has thrown a spotlight on the complicated machinery that regulates cholesterol levels.But many researchers remain confident that drugs to boost levels of 'good' cholesterol are still one of the most promising means to combat spiralling heart disease.
2.Drug company Pfizer announced on 2 December that it was cancelling all clinical trials of torcetrapib，a drug designed to raise heart-protective high-density lipoproteins (HDLs).In a trial of 15000 patients，a safety board found that more people died or suffered cardiovascular problems after taking the drug plus a cholesterol-lowering statin than those in a control group who took the statin alone.
3.The news came as a kick in the teeth to many cardiologists because earlier tests in animals and people suggested it would lower rates of cardiovascular disease."There have been no red flags to my knowledge," says John Chapman，a specialist in lipoproteins and atherosclerosis at the National Institute for Health and Medical Research (INSERM) in Paris who has also studied torcetrapib."This cancellation came as a complete shock."
4.Torcetrapib is one of the most advanced of a new breed of drugs designed to raise levels of HDLs，which ferry cholesterol out of artery-clogging plaques to the liver for removal from the body.Specifically，torcetrapib blocks a protein called cholesterol ester transfer protein (CETP)，which normally transfers the cholesterol from high-density lipoproteins to low density，plaque-promoting ones.Statins，in contrast，mainly work by lowering the 'bad' low-density lipoproteins.
Under pressure
5.Researchers are now trying to work out why and how the drug backfired，something that will not become clear until the clinical details are released by Pfizer.One hint lies in evidence from earlier trials that it slightly raises blood pressure in some patients.It was thought that this mild problem would be offset by the heart benefits of the drug.But it is possible that it actually proved fatal in some patients who already suffered high blood pressure.If blood pressure is the explanation，it would actually be good news for drug developers because it suggests that the problems are specific to this compound.Other prototype drugs that are being developed to block CETP work in a slightly different way and might not suffer the same downfall.
6.But it is also possible that the whole idea of blocking CETP is flawed，says Moti Kashyap，who directs atherosclerosis research at the VA Medical Center in Long Beach，California.When HDLs excrete cholesterol in the liver，they actually rely on LDLs for part of this process.So inhibiting CETP，which prevents the transfer of cholesterol from HDL to LDL，might actually cause an abnormal and irreversible accumulation of cholesterol in the body."You're blocking a physiologic mechanism to eliminate cholesterol and effectively constipating the pathway," says Kashyap.Going up
7.Most researchers remain confident that elevating high density lipoproteins levels by one means or another is one of the best routes for helping heart disease patients.But HDLs are complex and not entirely understood.One approved drug，called niacin，is known to both raise HDL and reduce cardiovascular risk but also causes an unpleasant sensation of heat and tingling.Researchers are exploring whether they can bypass this side effect and whether niacin can lower disease risk more than statins alone.Scientists are also working on several other means to bump up high-density lipoproteins by，for example，introducing synthetic HDLs."The only thing we know is dead in the water is torcetrapib，not the whole idea of raising HDL," says Michael Miller，director of preventive cardiology at the University of Maryland Medical Center，Baltimore.
Questions 7-13
Match torcetrapib，HDLs，statin and CETP with their functions (Questions 8-13)..Write the correct letter A，B，C or D in boxes 8-13 on your answer sheet.NB You may use any letter more than once.
7.It has been administered to over 10,000 subjects in a clinical trial.
8.It could help rid human body of cholesterol.
9.Researchers are yet to find more about it.
10.It was used to reduce the level of cholesterol.
11.According to Kashyap，it might lead to unwanted result if it's blocked.
12.It produced contradictory results in different trials.
13.It could inhibit LDLs.List of choices
A.TorcetrapicB.HDLSC.StatinD.CETP
7.A
8.B
9.B
10.C
11.D
12.A
13.C
7、見第二段。題目中administer一詞意為“用藥”，subject一詞為“實驗對象”之意。
8、見第四段“…toraiselevelsofHDLs，whichferrycholesteroloutofartery-cloggingplaquestotheliverforremovalfromthebody.”即HDLs的作用最終是將choleserol清除出人體：“…forremovalfromthebody”。
9、見第四段“ButHDLsarecomplexandnotentirelyunderstood.”
10、見第二段“…plusacholesterol-loweringstatin”，即statin是可以降低cholesterol的。
11、見第六段“SoinhibitingCETP，…mightactuallycauseanabnormalandirreversibleaccumulationofcholesterolinthebody.
12、見第三段。
13、見第四段“Statins，incontrast，mainlyworkbyloweringthe'bad'low-densitylipoproteins.”
Felicity Lawrence
Thursday December 28, 2006
The Guardian
1. Consumers are to be presented with two rival new year advertising campaigns as the Food Standards Agency goes public in its battle with the industry over the labelling of unhealthy foods.
2. The Guardian has learned that the FSA will launch a series of 10-second television adverts in January telling shoppers how to follow a red, amber and green traffic light labelling system on the front of food packs, which is designed to tackle Britain’s obesity epidemic.
3. The campaign is a direct response to a concerted attempt by leading food manufacturers and retailers, including Kellogg’s and Tesco, to derail the system. The industry fears that traffic lights would demonise entire categories of foods and could seriously damage the market for those that are fatty, salty or high in sugar.
4. The UK market for breakfast cereals is worth ￡1.27bn a year and the manufacturers fear it will be severely dented if red light labels are put on packaging drawing attention to the fact that the majority are high in salt and/or sugar.
5. The industry is planning a major marketing campaign for a competing labelling system which avoids colour-coding in favour of information about the percentage of "guideline daily amounts" (GDAs) of fat, salt and sugar contained in their products.
6. The battle for the nation’s diet comes as new rules on television advertising come into force in January which will bar adverts for unhealthy foods from commercial breaks during programmes aimed at children. Sources at the TV regulators are braced for a legal challenge from the industry and have described the lobbying efforts to block any new ad ban or colour-coded labelling as "the most ferocious we’ve ever experienced".
7. Ofcom’s chief executive, Ed Richards, said: "We are prepared to face up to any legal action from the industry, but we very much hope it will not be necessary." The FSA said it was expecting an onslaught from the industry in January. Senior FSA officials said the manufacturers’ efforts to undermine its proposals on labelling could threaten the agency’s credibility.
8. Terrence Collis, FSA director of communications, dismissed claims that the proposals were not based on science. "We have some of the most respected scientists in Europe, both within the FSA and in our independent advisory committees. It is unjustified and nonsensical to attack the FSA’s scientific reputation and to try to undermine its credibility."
9. The FSA is understood to have briefed its ad agency, United, before Christmas, and will aim to air ads that are "non-confrontational, humorous and factual" as a counterweight to industry’s efforts about the same time. The agency, however, will have a tiny fraction of the budget available to the industry.
10. Gavin Neath, chairman of Unilever UK and president of the Food and Drink Federation, has said that the industry has made enormous progress but could not accept red "stop" signs on its food.
11. Alastair Sykes, chief executive of Nestlé UK, said that under the FSA proposals all his company’s confectionery and most of its cereals would score a red. "Are we saying people shouldn’t eat confectionery? We’re driven by consumers and what they want, and much of what we do has been to make our products healthier," he said.
12. Chris Wermann, director of communications at Kellogg’s, said: "In principle we could never accept traffic light labelling."
13. The rival labelling scheme introduced by Kellogg’s, Danone, Unilever, Nestlé, Kraft and Tesco and now favoured by 21 manufacturers, uses an industry-devised system based on identifying GDAs of key nutrients. Tesco says it has tested both traffic lights and GDA labels in its stores and that the latter increased sales of healthier foods.
14. But the FSA said it could not live with this GDA system alone because it was "not scientific" or easy for shoppers to understand at a glance.
Questions 1-6
Answer the questions below using NO MORE THAN THREE WORDS from the passage for each answer.
1. When will instructions be given on reading the color-coded labels?
2. Where can customers find the red light labels?
3. What problem is the FSA trying to handle with the labeling system?
4. Which product sells well but may not be healthy?
5. What information, according to the manufacturers, can be labeled on products?
6. What can not be advertised during children’s programmes?
Questions 7-13
Use the information in the text to match the people (listed A-E) with the opinions (listed 7-13) below. Write the appropriate letter (A-E) for questions 1-7.
NB You may use any letter more than once.
A Ed Richard
B Terrence Collis
C Gavin Neath
D Alastair Sykes
E Chris Wermann
7. Generally we will not agree to use the red light labels.
8. It is unreasonable to doubt if FSA is trustworthy.
9. We are trying to meet our consumers’ needs.
10. The food industry has been improving greatly.
11. The color-coded labeling system is scientific.
12. Our products will be labeled unhealthy by the FSA.
13. We are ready to confront the manufacturers.
new weapon to fight cancer
1. British scientists are preparing to launch trials of a radical new way to fight cancer, which kills tumours by infecting them with viruses like the common cold.
2. If successful, virus therapy could eventually form a third pillar alongside radiotherapy and chemotherapy in the standard arsenal against cancer, while avoiding some of the debilitating side-effects.
3. Leonard Seymour, a professor of gene therapy at Oxford University, who has been working on the virus therapy with colleagues in London and the US, will lead the trials later this year. Cancer Research UK said yesterday that it was excited by the potential of Prof Seymour’s pioneering techniques.
4. One of the country’s leading geneticists, Prof Seymour has been working with viruses that kill cancer cells directly, while avoiding harm to healthy tissue. "In principle, you’ve got something which could be many times more effective than regular chemotherapy," he said.
5. Cancer-killing viruses exploit the fact that cancer cells suppress the body’s local immune system. "If a cancer doesn’t do that, the immune system wipes it out. If you can get a virus into a tumour, viruses find them a very good place to be because there’s no immune system to stop them replicating. You can regard it as the cancer’s Achilles’ heel."
6. Only a small amount of the virus needs to get to the cancer. "They replicate, you get a million copies in each cell and the cell bursts and they infect the tumour cells adjacent and repeat the process," said Prof Seymour.
7. Preliminary research on mice shows that the viruses work well on tumours resistant to standard cancer drugs. "It’s an interesting possibility that they may have an advantage in killing drug-resistant tumours, which could be quite different to anything we’ve had before."
8. Researchers have known for some time that viruses can kill tumour cells and some aspects of the work have already been published in scientific journals. American scientists have previously injected viruses directly into tumours but this technique will not work if the cancer is inaccessible or has spread throughout the body.
9. Prof Seymour’s innovative solution is to mask the virus from the body’s immune system, effectively allowing the viruses to do what chemotherapy drugs do - spread through the blood and reach tumours wherever they are. The big hurdle has always been to find a way to deliver viruses to tumours via the bloodstream without the body’s immune system destroying them on the way.
10. "What we’ve done is make chemical modifications to the virus to put a polymer coat around it - it’s a stealth virus when you inject it," he said.
11. After the stealth virus infects the tumour, it replicates, but the copies do not have the chemical modifications. If they escape from the tumour, the copies will be quickly recognised and mopped up by the body’s immune system.
12. The therapy would be especially useful for secondary cancers, called metastases, which sometimes spread around the body after the first tumour appears. "There’s an awful statistic of patients in the west ... with malignant cancers; 75% of them go on to die from metastases," said Prof Seymour.
13. Two viruses are likely to be examined in the first clinical trials: adenovirus, which normally causes a cold-like illness, and vaccinia, which causes cowpox and is also used in the vaccine against smallpox. For safety reasons, both will be disabled to make them less pathogenic in the trial, but Prof Seymour said he eventually hopes to use natural viruses.
14. The first trials will use uncoated adenovirus and vaccinia and will be delivered locally to liver tumours, in order to establish whether the treatment is safe in humans and what dose of virus will be needed. Several more years of trials will be needed, eventually also on the polymer-coated viruses, before the therapy can be considered for use in the NHS. Though the approach will be examined at first for cancers that do not respond to conventional treatments, Prof Seymour hopes that one day it might be applied to all cancers.
Questions 1-6
Do the following statements agree with the information given in the reading passage? For questions 1-6 write
TRUE if the statement agrees with the information
FALSE if the statement contradicts the information
NOT GIVEN if there is no information on this in the passage
1.Virus therapy, if successful, has an advantage in eliminating side-effects.
2.Cancer Research UK is quite hopeful about Professor Seymour’s work on the virus therapy.
3.Virus can kill cancer cells and stop them from growing again.
4.Cancer’s Achilles’ heel refers to the fact that virus may stay safely in a tumor and replicate.
5.To infect the cancer cells, a good deal of viruses should be injected into the tumor.
6.Researches on animals indicate that virus could be used as a new way to treat drug-resistant tumors.
Question 7-9
Based on the reading passage, choose the appropriate letter from A-D for each answer.
7.Information about researches on viruses killing tumor cells can be found
(A) on TV
(B) in magazines
(C) on internet
(D) in newspapers
8.To treat tumors spreading out in body, researchers try to
(A) change the body’ immune system
(B) inject chemotherapy drugs into bloodstream.
(C) increase the amount of injection
(D) disguise the viruses on the way to tumors.
9.When the chemical modified virus in tumor replicates, the copies
(A) will soon escape from the tumor and spread out.
(B) will be wiped out by the body’s immune system.
(C) will be immediately recognized by the researchers.
(D) will eventually stop the tumor from spreading out.
Questions 10-13
Complete the sentences below. Choose your answers from the list of words. You can only use each word once.
NB There are more words in the list than spaces so you will not use them all.
In the first clinical trials, scientists will try to ……10…… adenovirus and vaccinia, so both the viruses will be less pathogenic than the ……11…….These uncoated viruses will be applied directly to certain areas to confirm safety on human beings and the right ……12…… needed. The experiments will firstly be ……13……to the treatment of certain cancers
-----Whataboutthepenyouboughtyesterday?
-----It____________well.Ilikeitverymuch.
How shops can exploit people's herd mentality to increase sales
1.A TRIP to the supermarket may not seem like an exercise in psychological warfare—but it is.Shopkeepers know that filling a store with the aroma of freshly baked bread makes people feel hungry and persuades them to buy more food than they had intended.Stocking the most expensive products at eye level makes them sell faster than cheaper but less visible competitors.Now researchers are investigating how “swarm intelligence” (that is，how ants，bees or any social animal，including humans，behave in a crowd) can be used to influence what people buy.
2.At a recent conference on the simulation of adaptive behaviour in Rome，Zeeshan-ul-hassan Usmani，a computer scientist from the Florida Institute of Technology，described a new way to increase impulse buying using this phenomenon.Supermarkets already encourage shoppers to buy things they did not realise they wanted: for instance，by placing everyday items such as milk and eggs at the back of the store，forcing shoppers to walk past other tempting goods to reach them.Mr Usmani and Ronaldo Menezes，also of the Florida Institute of Technology，set out to enhance this tendency to buy more by playing on the herd instinct.The idea is that，if a certain product is seen to be popular，shoppers are likely to choose it too.The challenge is to keep customers informed about what others are buying.
3.Enter smart-cart technology.In Mr Usmani's supermarket every product has a radio frequency identification tag，a sort of barcode that uses radio waves to transmit information，and every trolley has a scanner that reads this information and relays it to a central computer.As a customer walks past a shelf of goods，a screen on the shelf tells him how many people currently in the shop have chosen that particular product.If the number is high，he is more likely to select it too.
4.Mr Usmani's “swarm-moves” model appeals to supermarkets because it increases sales without the need to give people discounts.And it gives shoppers the satisfaction of knowing that they bought the “right” product—that is，the one everyone else bought.The model has not yet been tested widely in the real world，mainly because radio frequency identification technology is new and has only been installed experimentally in some supermarkets.But Mr Usmani says that both Wal-Mart in America and Tesco in Britain are interested in his work，and testing will get under way in the spring.
5.Another recent study on the power of social influence indicates that sales could，indeed，be boosted in this way.Matthew Salganik of Columbia University in New York and his colleagues have described creating an artificial music market in which some 14,000 people downloaded previously unknown songs.The researchers found that when people could see the songs ranked by how many times they had been downloaded，they followed the crowd.When the songs were not ordered by rank，but the number of times they had been downloaded was displayed，the effect of social influence was still there but was less pronounced.People thus follow the herd when it is easy for them to do so.
6.In Japan a chain of convenience shops called RanKing RanQueen has been ordering its products according to sales data from department stores and research companies.The shops sell only the most popular items in each product category，and the rankings are updated weekly.Icosystem，a company in Cambridge，Massachusetts，also aims to exploit knowledge of social networking to improve sales.
7.And the psychology that works in physical stores is just as potent on the internet.Online retailers such as Amazon are adept at telling shoppers which products are popular with like-minded consumers.Even in the privacy of your home，you can still be part of the swarm.
Questions 1-6
Complete the sentences below with words taken from the reading passage.Use NO MORE THAN THREE WORDS for each answer.
1.Shopowners realize that the smell of _______________ can increase sales of food products.
2.In shops，products shelved at a more visible level sell better even if they are more _______________.
3.According to Mr.Usmani，with the use of “swarm intelligence” phenomenon，a new method can be applied to encourage _______________.
4.On the way to everyday items at the back of the store，shoppers might be tempted to buy _______________.
5.If the number of buyers shown on the _______________ is high，other customers tend to follow them.
6.Using the “swarm-moves” model，shopowners do not have to give customers _______________ to increase sales.
1. A European spacecraft took off today to spearhead the search for another "Earth" among the stars.
2. The Corot space telescope blasted off aboard a Russian Soyuz rocket from the Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan shortly after 2.20pm.
3. Corot, short for convection rotation and planetary transits, is the first instrument capable of finding small rocky planets beyond the solar system. Any such planet situated in the right orbit stands a good chance of having liquid water on its surface, and quite possibly life, although a leading scientist involved in the project said it was unlikely to find "any little green men".
4. Developed by the French space agency, CNES, and partnered by the European Space Agency (ESA), Austria, Belgium, Germany, Brazil and Spain, Corot will monitor around 120,000 stars with its 27cm telescope from a polar orbit 514 miles above the Earth. Over two and a half years, it will focus on five to six different areas of the sky, measuring the brightness of about 10,000 stars every 512 seconds.
5. "At the present moment we are hoping to find out more about the nature of planets around stars which are potential habitats. We are looking at habitable planets, not inhabited planets. We are not going to find any little green men," Professor Ian Roxburgh, an ESA scientist who has been involved with Corot since its inception, told the BBC Radio 4 Today programme.
6. Prof Roxburgh said it was hoped Corot would find "rocky planets that could develop an atmosphere and, if they are the right distance from their parent star, they could have water".
7. To search for planets, the telescope will look for the dimming of starlight caused when an object passes in front of a star, known as a "transit". Although it will take more sophisticated space telescopes planned in the next 10 years to confirm the presence of an Earth-like planet with oxygen and liquid water, Corot will let scientists know where to point their lenses.
8. Measurements of minute changes in brightness will enable scientists to detect giant Jupiter-like gas planets as well as small rocky ones. It is the rocky planets - that could be no bigger than about twice the size of the Earth - which will cause the most excitement. Scientists expect to find between 10 and 40 of these smaller planets.
9. Corot will also probe into stellar interiors by studying the acoustic waves that ripple across the surface of stars, a technique called "asteroseismology".
10. The nature of the ripples allows astronomers to calculate a star’s precise mass, age and chemical composition.
11. "A planet passing in front of a star can be detected by the fall in light from that star. Small oscillations of the star also produce changes in the light emitted, which reveal what the star is made of and how they are structured internally. This data will provide a major boost to our understanding of how stars form and evolve," Prof Roxburgh said.
12. Since the discovery in 1995 of the first "exoplanet" - a planet orbiting a star other than the Sun - more than 200 others have been found by ground-based observatories.
13. Until now the usual method of finding exoplanets has been to detect the "wobble" their gravity imparts on parent stars. But only giant gaseous planets bigger than Jupiter can be found this way, and they are unlikely to harbour life.
14. In the 2010s, ESA plans to launch Darwin, a fleet of four or five interlinked space telescopes that will not only spot small rocky planets, but analyse their atmospheres for signs of biological activity.
15. At around the same time, the US space agency, Nasa, will launch Terrestrial Planet Finder, another space telescope designed to locate Earth-like planets.
Choose the appropriate letter from A-D for question 1.
1. Corot is an instrument which
(A) can help to search for certain planets
(B) is used to find planets in the orbit
(C) can locate planets with human beings
(D) can spot any planets with water.
Do the following statements agree with the information given in the reading passage? For questions 2-5 write
TRUE if the statement agrees with the information
FALSE if the statement contraicts the information
NOT GIVEN if there is no information on this in the passage
2. Scientists are trying to find out about the planets that can be inhabited.
3. BBC Radio 4 recently focuses on the broadcasting of Corot.
4. Passing objects might cause a fall in light.
5. Corot can tell whether there is another Earth-like planet.
Based on your reading of the passage, complete the sentences below with words taken from the passage. Use NO MORE THAN THREE WORDS for each answer.
With measurements, scientists will be able to search for some gaseous and rocky planets. They will be extremely excited if they can discover some small 6. __________, the expected number of which could be up to 7. __________ .
Corot will enable scientists to study the 8. __________ of stars. In this way, a star’s mass, age and chemical composition can be calculated.
According to Prof Roxburgh, changes in light can be caused by passing planets or star 9. __________. The related statistics can gain us a better 10. __________ of the star formation and evolvement.
Observatories have found many exoplanets, which are 11. __________ other stars than the Sun. The common way used in finding exoplanets can only detect huge gas planets, which do not 12. ___________ .
With the launching of Darwin, astronomers will be able to analyse whether those rocky planets have 13. __________ for life.
