/Directions: There are 2 passages in this section. Each passage is followed by some questions or unfinished statements. For each of them there are four choices marked A), B), C) and D). You should decide on the best choice and mark the corresponding letter on Answer Sheet 2 with a single line through the centre.

/     Aging happens to all of us, and is generally thought of as a natural part of life. It would seem silly to call such a thing a “disease.”
/On the other hand, scientists are increasingly learning that aging and biological age are two different things, and that the former is a key risk factor for conditions such as heart disease, cancer and many more. In that light, aging itself might be seen as something treatable, the way you would treat high blood pressure or a vitamin deficiency.
/Biophysicist Alex Zhavoronkov believes that aging should be considered a disease. He said that describing aging as a disease creates incentives to develop treatments.
/    “It unties the hands of the pharmaceutical (制药的) industry so that they can begin treating the disease and not just the side effects,” he said.
/    “Right now, people think of aging as natural and something you can’t control,” he said. “IN academic circles, people take aging research as just an interest area where they can try to develop interventions. The medical community also takes aging for granted, and can do nothing about it except keep people within a certain health range.”
/But if aging were recognized as a disease, he said, “It would attract funding and change the way we do health care. What matters is understand that aging is curable.”
/    “It was always known that the body accumulates damage,” he added. “The only way to cure aging is to find ways to repair that damage. I think of it as preventive medicine for age-related conditions.”
/    Leonard Hayflick, a professor at the University of California, San Francisco, said the idea that aging can be cured implies the human lifespan can be increased, which some researchers suggest is possible. Hayflick is not among them.
/    “There’re many people who recover from cancer, stroke, or heart disease. But they continue to age, because aging is separate from their disease,” Hayflick said. “Even if those causes of death were eliminated, life expectancy would still not go much beyond 92 years.”

Part Ⅲ  Reading Comprehension    (40 minutes)

Section A
data-filtered=filtered style=box-sizing: border-box;/    Directions: In this section, there is a passage with ten blanks. You are required to select one word for each blank from a list of choices given in a word bank following the passage. Read the passage through carefully before making your choices. Each choice in the bank is identified by a letter. Please mark the corresponding letter for each item on Answer Sheet 2 with a single line through the centre. You may not use any of the words in the bank more than once.   A rat or pigeon might not be the obvious choice to tend to someone who is sick, but these creatures have some ___26___ skills that could help the treatment of human diseases.
data-filtered=filtered style=box-sizing: border-box;/   Pigeons are often seen as dirty birds and an urban ____27___, but they are just the latest in a long line of animals that have been found to have abilities to help humans. Despite having a brain no bigger than the ___28___ of your index finger, pigeons have a very impressive ____29____ memory. Recently it was shown that they could be trained to be as accurate as human at detecting breast cancer in images.
data-filtered=filtered style=box-sizing: border-box;/   Rats are often ___30____ with spreading disease rather than ___31___ it, but this long-tailed animal is highly ___32___. Inside a rat’s nose are up to 1,000 different types of olfactory receptors （嗅觉感受器）, whereas humans only have 100 to 200 types. This gives rats the ability to detect ___33___ smells. As a result, some rats are being put to work to detect TB（肺结核）. When the rats detect the smell, they stop and rub their legs to ___34___ a sample is infected.
data-filtered=filtered style=box-sizing: border-box;/    Traditionally, a hundred samples would take lab technicians more than two days to ___35___, but for a rat it takes less than 20 minutes. This rat detection method doesn’t rely on specialist equipment. It is also more accurate — the rats are able to find more TB infections and, therefore, save more lives.
A) associated  B) examine  C) indicate  D) nuisance  
E) peak  F) preventing  G) prohibiting  H) sensitive
I) slightJ) specify
K) superior
L) suspicious
M) tip
N) treated
O) visual

Part Ⅲ  Reading Comprehension    (40 minutes)

Section A
data-filtered=filtered style=box-sizing: border-box;/    Directions: In this section, there is a passage with ten blanks. You are required to select one word for each blank from a list of choices given in a word bank following the passage. Read the passage through carefully before making your choices. Each choice in the bank is identified by a letter. Please mark the corresponding letter for each item on Answer Sheet 2 with a single line through the centre. You may not use any of the words in the bank more than once.   A rat or pigeon might not be the obvious choice to tend to someone who is sick, but these creatures have some ___26___ skills that could help the treatment of human diseases.
data-filtered=filtered style=box-sizing: border-box;/   Pigeons are often seen as dirty birds and an urban ____27___, but they are just the latest in a long line of animals that have been found to have abilities to help humans. Despite having a brain no bigger than the ___28___ of your index finger, pigeons have a very impressive ____29____ memory. Recently it was shown that they could be trained to be as accurate as human at detecting breast cancer in images.
data-filtered=filtered style=box-sizing: border-box;/   Rats are often ___30____ with spreading disease rather than ___31___ it, but this long-tailed animal is highly ___32___. Inside a rat’s nose are up to 1,000 different types of olfactory receptors （嗅觉感受器）, whereas humans only have 100 to 200 types. This gives rats the ability to detect ___33___ smells. As a result, some rats are being put to work to detect TB（肺结核）. When the rats detect the smell, they stop and rub their legs to ___34___ a sample is infected.
data-filtered=filtered style=box-sizing: border-box;/    Traditionally, a hundred samples would take lab technicians more than two days to ___35___, but for a rat it takes less than 20 minutes. This rat detection method doesn’t rely on specialist equipment. It is also more accurate — the rats are able to find more TB infections and, therefore, save more lives.
A) associated  B) examine  C) indicate  D) nuisance  
E) peak  F) preventing  G) prohibiting  H) sensitive
I) slightJ) specify
K) superior
L) suspicious
M) tip
N) treated
O) visual

/Directions: There are 2 passages in this section. Each passage is followed by some questions or unfinished statements. For each of them there are four choices marked A), B), C) and D). You should decide on the best choice and mark the corresponding letter on Answer Sheet 2 with a single line through the centre.

/     Aging happens to all of us, and is generally thought of as a natural part of life. It would seem silly to call such a thing a “disease.”
/On the other hand, scientists are increasingly learning that aging and biological age are two different things, and that the former is a key risk factor for conditions such as heart disease, cancer and many more. In that light, aging itself might be seen as something treatable, the way you would treat high blood pressure or a vitamin deficiency.
/Biophysicist Alex Zhavoronkov believes that aging should be considered a disease. He said that describing aging as a disease creates incentives to develop treatments.
/    “It unties the hands of the pharmaceutical (制药的) industry so that they can begin treating the disease and not just the side effects,” he said.
/    “Right now, people think of aging as natural and something you can’t control,” he said. “IN academic circles, people take aging research as just an interest area where they can try to develop interventions. The medical community also takes aging for granted, and can do nothing about it except keep people within a certain health range.”
/But if aging were recognized as a disease, he said, “It would attract funding and change the way we do health care. What matters is understand that aging is curable.”
/    “It was always known that the body accumulates damage,” he added. “The only way to cure aging is to find ways to repair that damage. I think of it as preventive medicine for age-related conditions.”
/    Leonard Hayflick, a professor at the University of California, San Francisco, said the idea that aging can be cured implies the human lifespan can be increased, which some researchers suggest is possible. Hayflick is not among them.
/    “There’re many people who recover from cancer, stroke, or heart disease. But they continue to age, because aging is separate from their disease,” Hayflick said. “Even if those causes of death were eliminated, life expectancy would still not go much beyond 92 years.”