新东方大学英语六级讲义与笔记:阅读(十四)

A nine-year-old schoolgirl single-handedly cooks up a science-fair experiment that ends up debunking（揭穿．．．的真相）a widely practiced medical treatment. Emily Rosa's target was a practice known as therapeutic（治疗）touch (TT for short), whose advocates manipulate patients' "energy field" to make them feel better and even, say some, to cure them of various ills. Yet Emily's test shows that these energy fields can't be detected, even by trained TT practitioners（行医者）. Obviously mindful of the publicity value of the situation, Journal editor George Lundberg appeared on TV to declare, "Age doesn't matter. It's good science that matters, and this is good science."

Emily's mother Linda Rosa, a registered nurse, has been campaigning against TT for nearly a decade. Linda first thought about TT in the late '80s, when she learned it was on the approved list for continuing nursing education in Colorado. Its 100,000 trained practitioners (48,000 in the U.S.) don't even touch their patients. Instead, they waved their hands a few inches from the patient's body, pushing energy fields around until they're in "balance." TT advocates say these manipulations can help heal wounds, relieve pain and reduce fever. The claims are taken seriously enough that TT therapists are frequently hired by leading hospitals, at up to $70 an hour, the smooth patients' energy, sometimes during surgery.

Yet Rosa could not find any evidence that it works. To provide such proof, TT therapists would have to sit down for independent testing-something they haven't been eager to do, even though James Randi has offered more than $1 million to anyone who can demonstrate the existence of a human energy field. (He's had one taker so far. She failed.) A skeptic might conclude that TT practitioners are afraid to lay their beliefs on the line. But who could turn down an innocent fourth-grader? Says Emily: "I think they didn't take me very seriously because I'm a kid."

The experiment was straightforward: 21 TT therapists stuck their hands, palms up, through a screen. Emily held her own hand over one of theirs-left or right-and the practitioners had to say which hand it was. When the results were recorded, they'd done no better than they would have by simply guessing. if there was an energy field, they couldn't feel it.

 

21. We learn from the first paragraph that two systems of automated highways __________.

 A) are being planned

 B) are being modified

 C) are now in wide use

 D) are under construction

注：on the drawing borad就是planned

 

22. A special-purpose lane system is probably advantageous in that ________________.

 A) it would require only minor changes to existing highways

 B) it would achieve the greatest highway traffic efficiency

 C) it has a lane for both automated and partially automated vehicles

 D) it offers more lanes for automated vehicles

注：A选项说反了

 

23. Which of the following is true about driving on an automated highway?

 A) Vehicles traveling on it are assigned different lanes according to their destinations.

 B) A car can join existing traffic any time in a mixed lane system.

 C) The driver should inform his car computer of his destination before driving onto it.

 D) The driver should share the automated lane with those f regular vehicles.

注：对应第二段开头

 

24. We know form the passage that a car can enter a special-purpose lane _____________.

 A) by smoothly merging with cars on the conventional lane

 B) by way of a ramp with electronic control devices

 C) through a specially guarded gate

 D) after all trespassers are identified and removed

注：争议题

 

25. When driving in an automated lane, the driver ___________.

 A) should harmonize with newly entering cars

 B) doesn't have to rely on his computer system

 C) should watch out for potential accidents

 D) doesn't have to hold not to the steering wheel

注：文章最后一段