2013年全国医学考博英语统一考试真题09

希赛网英语频道为大家整理2012年全国医学博士英语统一考试真题。

Part IV Reading Comprehension (30%)

Passage Six

Stephanie Smith, a children5 s dance instructor, thought she has a stomach virus. The aches and cramping were tolerable that first day, and she finished her classes. Then her diarrhea turned bloody. Her kidneys shut down. Seizures knocked her unconscious. The convulsions grew so relentless that doctors had to put her in a coma for nine weeks. When she emerged, she could no longer walk. The affliction had ravaged her nervous system and left her paralyzed from the waist down. Ms. Smith was found to have a severe form of food-borne illness causes by E. coli, which Minnesota officials traced to the hamburger that her mother had grilled for their Sunday family party. In the simplest terms, she ran out of luck in a food-safety game of chance whose rules and risks are not widely known. Meat companies and grocers have been barred from selling ground beef tainted by the virulent strain of E. coli known as 0157: H7 since 1994. Yet tens of thousands of people are still sickened annually by this pathogen, with hamburgers being the biggest culprit. Ground beef has been blamed for 16 outbreaks in the last three years alone. This summer, contamination led to the recall of beef from nearly 3 000 grocers in 41 states. Ms. Smith5 s reaction to the virulent strain of E. coli was extreme, but tracing the story of her burger shows that neither the system meant to make the meat safe, nor the meat itself, is what consumers have been led to believe.

Ground beef is usually not simply a chunk of meat run through a grinder. Instead, a single portion of hamburger meat is often an amalgam of various grades of meat from different parts of cows and even from different slaughterhouses. This makes the costs 25% less than it would have for cuts of whole meat. These

cuts of meat are particularly vulnerable to E. coli contamination, food experts and officials say. Despite this, there is no federal requirement for grinders to test their ingredients for the pathogen. Those ingredients include cuts from areas of the cow that are more likely to have had contact with feces, which carries E. coli, industry research shows. Yet most meat companies rely on their suppliers to check for the bacteria and do their own testing only after the ingredients are ground together.Unwritten agreements between some companies appear to stand in the way of ingredient testing. Many big slaughterhouses will sell only to grinders who agree not to test their shipments for E. coli for fear of a recall of ingredients they sold to others.

“ Ground beef is not a completely safe product," said Dr. Jeffrey Bender, a food safety expert at the University of Minnesota who helped develop systems for tracing E. coli. contamination. He said that while outbreaks had been on the decline, “unfortunately it looks like we are going a bit in the opposite direction. ”

86. What is the main idea of this passage?

A. An outbreak of 0157 ：H7.

B.Food contamination on a rise.

C. A case report on food poisoning.

D. The flaws in the system of beef inspection.

87. We can learn from the passage that .

A. most people get sickened every year for eating hamburgers tainted by E. coli

B. so far there have been outbreaks of E. coli contamination of beef

C. beef contamination is so serious that it can be found in 41 states

D. Ms. Smith5 s reaction to 0157: H7 is uncommon

88. The reason behind the way ground beef produced is .

A. the making of more profits

B. the satisfaction of the customersJ needs

C. the vulnerability to E. coli contamination

D. the requirement of the federal government

89. We can infer that many big slaughterhouses .

A. conducted a recall if ground beef this summer

B. cannot be too careful about the safety of their beef products

C. actually know the possibility of their ground beef contamination

D. are completely ignorant of E. coli contamination of their beef supplies

90. As Bender implies at the end of the passage, .

A. it is wise for consumers to stay away from beef products

B. the outbreaks of E. coli contamination are on the decline

C. things are not completely satisfying

D. it is unhealthy to live on hamburgers

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