A team of researchers has found that immunizing patients with bee venom instead of with th

More than one in ten people who are regularly exposed to organophosphate pesticides(有机磷酸脂农药) will suffer unrecoverable physical and mental damage, a team of psychiatrists warns. The investigators say that theirs is the first serious attempt to estimate the number of people suffering because of chronic low-level exposure to the pesticides.

"This is a worrying high level of illness," says one researcher. The findings by the researcher, who also treats many of the victims, conflict with those of the Britain's government agency monitoring occupational health, which says there is no good evidence to suggest chronic exposure leads to widespread illness. The research team sent questionnaires to 400 farmers selected at random from a phone book. Of 179 who replied, 130 reported that they had been exposed to organophosphates. And 21 farmers complained of enough symptoms to be classed as suffering from organophosphate poisoning. Allowing for bias inherent in the survey method, they suggest that around 10 percent of farmers exposed to the pesticides suffer from poisoning.

The researchers also uncovered a consistent pattern of symptoms ranging from extreme tiredness and speech difficulty to suicidal impulses. Again this contrasts with the government agency's view that there is no clear pattern of symptoms for pesticide poisoning, making a diagnosis difficult.

They believe the real figure for poisoning is much higher, once you include cancers and heart disease linked to the pesticide. Last year, British specialists also found evidence of a link between organophosphates and severe bone abnormalities in eight men. One of the researchers, Anthony Lyons of Queen's Medical centre in Nottingham, says preliminary results from a larger follow-up study suggest the extent of bone damage may be worse than they feared.

All those who suffer from organophosphate poisoning complain of becoming "exquisitely sensitive" to any further exposure. This is bad news for any Gulf War veterans sent back to the Middle East. Many scientists and doctors are convinced that Gulf War Syndrome is at least partly caused by organophosphate pesticides, which were sprayed in tents and on clothes to protect troops from biting insects.

A spokesman for Britain's Ministry of Defense says there are no immediate plans to send ground troops to the Gulf. But the US is moving 5,000 troops into the region. Returning troops "would be more vulnerable to poisoning", says one of the leading US authorities on such poisoning.

In which area do the findings of the researchers have confliction with those Britain's Health and Safety Executive(HSE), the government agency monitoring occupational health？ ______.

A．Whether exposure to organophosphate will do any harm to man

B．Whether chronic exposure to organophosphate would lead to widespread illness

C．Whether it is worthwhile to find out the number of people suffering from organophosphate poisoning

D．Whether organophosphate is a good pesticide

A.persuasive

B.instructive

C.qualitative

D.inclusive

A. independent

B. conscientious

C. conscious

D. industrious

A.skimming

B. scanning

C. inferring

D. induction

1% significance 5% significance 10% significance

A) Reject Fail to reject Fail to reject

B) Fail to reject Fail to reject Reject

C) Reject Reject Reject

D) Fail to reject Reject Reject

(1) Reading award-winning literature may boost your ability to read other people, a new study suggests. Researchers at the New School for Social Research, in New York City, found that when they had volunteers read works of acclaimed “literary fiction”, it seemed to temporarily improve their ability to interpret other people’s emotions. The same was not true of nonfiction or “popular” fiction, the mystery, romance and science-fiction books that often dominate bestseller lists. (2) Experts said the findings, reported online in Science, suggest that literature might help people to be more perceptive and engaged in their lives. (3) “Reading literary fiction isn’t just for passing the time. It’s not just an escape,” said Keith Oatley, a professor emeritus of cognitive psychology at the University of Toronto. “It also enables us to better understand others, and then take that into our daily live.” (4) Oatley was not involved in the new research, but worked on some of the first studies to suggest that reading literature can boost people’s empathy for others. His team has found that those who read a lot of fiction tend to show greater empathy for others. His teams has found that those who read a lot of fiction tend to show greater empathy on standard tests, but the same is not true of avid nonfiction fans. (5) But, the study by Oatley and his team cannot prove that literature boosts empathy – empathetic folks may just be drawn to reading fiction, whereas the new study does offer some “cause-and-effect” evidence, Oatley said. For the study, researchers set up a series of five experiments in which participants read either literary fiction, popular fiction, nonfiction or nothing at all before taking some standard tests. One of the tests is known as “Reading the Mind in the Eyes”. People have to look at photos of actors’ eyes, and then guess what emotion is being expressed in each. The test is considered a measure of empathy. Overall, study participants fared better on the test after reading literary fiction, versus the other three conditions. (6) It was a small improvement, according to the principal researcher David Comer Kidd, “It’s not alike taking people from a (grade) ‘C’ to an ‘A’,” he said. But Kidd added, the effect was seen after only about 10 minutes’ reading, and it was a statistically strong finding, meaning it’s unlikely to have been due to chance. (7) “Literary” fiction has no hard-and-fast definition. So Kidd and his colleagues chose contemporary works that have won or been finalists for outstanding literary awards. They included “The Round House”, by Louise Erdrich, “Salvage the Bones”, by Jesmyn Ward and the short story “Corrie” by Alice Munro. And “popular” fiction included best-sellers like “Gone Girl” by Gillian Flynn, and Danielle Stelle’s “The Sins of the Mother”. (8) What’s so special about literary fiction？ “For one, it’s usually more focused on characters than on plot,” Kidd noted. But beyond that, he said there is usually no single “authoritative narrator” who takes us through the story. “It demands that the reader almost become a writer and fill in the gaps. You really have to think about the characters,” Kidd said. (9) Oatley agreed. “Alice Munro doesn’t tell you what to think,” he said. “You, yourself, have to make inferences about characters. And that’s often what we’re doing in our real-life conversations.” Or at least that’s what people could do. (10) Reading literary fiction could also offer a way to “practice” your social skills and use them more in real life, according to another researcher not involved in the study. “It’s like how pilots train in a flight simulator,” said Raymond Mar, an associate professor of psychology at York University, in Toronto, who has collaborated with Oatley. “This is a great study,” Mar said of the new study. But he added that the overall research in this area is “still in its infancy” and one key question is whether literary fiction really is better than other fiction. (11) Mar and his colleagues recently found that fans of romance novels tended to do best on tests of empathy. Unlike the current study, Mar’s study did not test people after having them read different types of fiction. So it’s possible that there is something else about romance-novel reader that makes them more understanding of others. (12) Still, according to Mar, it’s too early to tell people to trade in their Danielle Steel for Alice Munro, at least if the goal is boosting empathy. (13) It’s also possible that plays, movies or even TV shows could build your empathy muscles, according to Kidd. But reading may be special, he said, because it provides no visuals and you have to engage your imagination more. (14) Everyone agreed that the findings suggest literature is important beyond entertainment or improving vocabulary. “There’s a common belief that reading literature is frivolous, or not practical,” Mar said. “But there is a growing body of evidence that it’s important in skills that we need in our lives.” According to the new study, what kind of books are likely to help people better understand others’ feelings？

A、Science fiction.

B、Romance novels

C、Literary fiction

D、Nonfiction.

What does the author conclude about preparing suitable questions for a research project？

A．It is more difficult than the student researcher may realize.

B．The researcher should get help from other people.

C．The questions should be brief so that they will he understood

D．It is important to follow formulas closely.

A.that

B.to that

C.which

D.to which

A.raised, uneducated

B.raised, educated

C.raising, educated

D.raising, uneducated