The first patient who died on my watch was an older man with a faulty heart. We tried to slow it down with treatment, but it suddenly stopped beating completely. Later, whenever I would have a case like that one, I found myself second-guessing my clinical management. However, it turns out that thinking twice may actually cause more harm than good.
In a working paper, Emory University researchers found that when doctors delivering a baby have a bad result, they are more likely to switch to a different delivery method with the next patient, often unnecessarily and sometimes with worse results.
Because doctors make so many decisions that have serious consequences, the fallout from second-guessing appears especially large for us. A 2006 study found that if a patient had a bleed after being prescribed (开药) warfarin, the physician was about 20% less likely to prescribe later patients the blood thinner that prevents strokes (中风). However, if a patient was not on warfarin and had a stroke physicians were still no more likely to prescribe warfarin to their other patients.
These findings highlight interesting behavioral patterns in doctors. In the blood-thinner study, doctors were more affected by the act of doing harm (prescribing a blood thinner that ended up hurting doctors were more affected by the act of doing harm(prescribing a blood thinner that ended up hurting a patient) and less affected by letting harm happen (not prescribing a blood thinner and the patient having a stroke). Yet a stroke is often more permanent and damaging than a bleed.
But this phenomenon is not unique to medicine. ''Overreaction to Fearsome Risks'' holds true for broader society.
For instance, sensational headlines about shark attacks on humans in Florida in 2001 caused a panic and led the state to prohibit shark-feeding expeditions. Yet shark attacks had actually fallen that year and, according to the study, such a change was probably unnecessary given the extremely small risk of such an attack happening.
Humans are likely to be influenced by emotional and often irrational (不理性的) thinking when processing information, bad events and mistakes. As much as we don't want to cause an unfortunate event to happen again, we need to be aware that a worst situation that can be imagined doesn't necessarily mean we did anything wrong. When we overthink, we fail to rely on thinking based on what we know or have experienced. Instead, we may involuntarily overanalyze and come to the wrong conclusion.
I have treated dozens of patients who presented with the same illnesses as my first patient, who died more than a year ago. Instead of second-guessing myself, I trusted my clinical instinct (本能) and stayed the course. Every one of those patients survived. You should trust your instinct in your life, too.
1.The first two paragraphs suggest that________.
A.bad medical outcomes affect doctors
B.delivering babies can be difficult work
C.some doctors are not very experienced
D.doctors sometimes make silly mistakes
2.In the blood-thinner study, doctors________.
A.tend to prescribe less effective medicine
B.are more concerned about the patients' safety
C.become less confident in writing a prescription
D.believe a stroke is more treatable than a bleeding
3.What does the underlined word ''fallout'' in Paragraph 3 probably mean?
A.Result B.Benefit C.Difference D.Absence
4.The author will probably agree that________.
A.we should not doubt our own decisions
B.our experience will pave way for our future
C.humans are emotional and irrational on the whole
D.instincts don't necessarily lead to wrong directions
Although it has been revealed in recent years that plants are capable of seeing, hearing and smelling, they are still usually thought of as silent. But now, for the first time, they have been recorded making ultrasonic (超声的) cries when stressed, which researchers say could open up a new field of precision agriculture where farmers listen for water-starved crops.
Itzhak Khait and his colleagues at Tel Aviv University in Israel found that tomato and tobacco plants made cries at frequencies humans cannot hear when stressed by a lack of water or when their stem it cut.
Microphones placed 10 centimetres from the plants picked up sounds in the ultrasonic range of 20 to 100 kilohertz, which the team says insects and some mammals would be capable of hearing and responding to from as far as 5 metres away. A moth may decide against laying eggs on a plant that sounds water-stressed, the researchers suggest. Plants could even hear that other plants are short of water and react accordingly, they speculate (推断).
On average, drought-stressed tomato plants made 35 sounds an hour, while tobacco plants made 11. When plant stems were cut, tomato plants made an average of 25 sounds in the following hour, and tobacco plants 15. Unstressed plants produced fewer than one sound per hour, on average.
It is even possible to distinguish between the sounds to know what the stress is. The researchers trained a machine-learning model to recognize between the plants’ sounds and the wind, rain and other noises of the greenhouse, correctly identifying in most cases whether the stress was caused by dryness or a cut, based on the sound’s intensity and frequency. Water-hungry tobacco appears to make louder sounds than cut tobacco, for example.
Enabling farmers to listen for water-stressed plants could “open a new direction in the field of precision agriculture”, the researchers suggest. They add that such an ability will be increasingly important as climate change exposes more areas to drought.
“The suggestion that the sounds that drought-stressed plants make could be used in precision agriculture seems feasible (可行的) if it is not too costly to set up the recording in a field situation,” says Anne Visscher at the royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, in the UK.
She warns that the results can’t yet be broadened out to other stresses, such as salt or temperature, because these may not lead to sounds. In addition, there have been no experiments to show whether moths or any other animal can hear and respond to the sounds the plants make, so that idea remains based on guesses for now, she says.
1.The experiment by researchers at Tel Aviv University shows that________.
A.tomato plants cry more often than tobacco when hurt
B.plant sounds can be heard by plants quite far away
C.humans can hear water-hungry plants crying
D.moths like laying eggs on stressed plant
2.What is Anne Visscher’s attitude towards the finding of the experiment?
A.Disappointed B.Cautious. C.Appreciative. D.Optimistic.
3.Taking advantage of the new research finding,farmers can________.
A.harvest crops in time B.reduce greenhouse effects
C.diagnose plant condition faster D.detect and remove insects easily
4.Which of the following would be the best title for the passage?
A.Plants get stressed Just Like Us.
B.Sounds of Plants Detected Far Away.
C.Cries of plants break Farmers’Hearts
D.Plants scream in the presence of stress
My daughter was being thrown out of the sixth grade. The teacher said, “She may not be up to what we’re trying to accomplish.” He was really saying she didn’t have the intelligence. I got mad because I knew she was smart, just as my father had known I was smart when I was failing in school. We had her tested. I decided to get myself tested as well, and found that the troubles she was having were exactly what I had had — dyslexia. By then I was a successful television writer, and had won an Emmy Award for “The Rockford Files.”
If I had known earlier that something beyond my control could explain why I was a low achiever, I may not have worked so hard in my late 20s and early 30s. I was writing and writing. I was working for no other reason than to hear people praise me, because I did badly in all my courses.
I once asked a friend who had always gotten an A, “How long did you study for this?” He said, “I didn’t. I just glanced at it.” So he must be smarter. I began to ask, “What will happen to me when I’m not good at anything?” Despite my doubts, I did become successful, and people now say to me, “So you’ve overcome dyslexia.”
No. You don’t overcome it, you learn to compensate for it. Some easy things are very hard for me. Most people who go through college read twice as fast as I do. I avoid dialing a phone if I can, because I sometimes have to try three times to get the number right.
Despite my weaknesses I view dyslexia as a gift, not a curse (诅咒). Many dyslexics are good at right-brain, abstract thought, and that’s what my kind of creative writing is. And I can write quickly, and can get up to 15 pages a day. Writing is my strength.
The real fear I have for dyslexic children is not they have to struggle in school, but that they will quit on themselves before they get out of school. Parents have to create victories for them, whether it’s music, sports or art. You can make your dyslexic child able to say, “Yeah, reading is hard. But I have other things I can do.”
1.The writer decided to get himself tested as well because he________.
A.wanted to know if they had the same problem
B.didn’t believe his daughter had the problem
C.had to take a regular medical examination
D.accepted that his daughter was not smart
2.We can learn from the second paragraph that the writer________.
A.struggled and got better grades
B.didn’t work hard when he was young
C.was praised for overcoming dyslexia
D.was thankful not knowing of dyslexia earlier
3.According to the passage, a dyslexic person________.
A.is less intelligent B.always fails in school
C.reads more slowly than normal people D.performs worse in left-brain activities
4.What can we learn from the story?
A.Clumsy birds have to start flying early. B.God shuts one door but opens another.
C.Never judge a person by his appearance. D.No one can make a good coat with bad cloth.
Get involved with our research
Some of our research projects rely on the generosity of people like you. Whether it’s using your home PC, taking part in a clinical trial, or simply volunteering your time for a study, you may be able to contribute to some of the ground-breaking projects which make the University of Oxford a world leader in research. Watch this space for ways in which you could get involved.
Seeking poor sleepers for insomnia (失眠) research
Trouble sleeping? Researchers from the Sleep & Circadian Neuroscience Institute are evaluating different interventions aimed at improving sleep. We are looking for poor sleepers between the ages of 18 and 65. Participation will involve spending overnights in the sleep laboratory at Oxford, monitoring your sleep/wake cycle, and completing computerised tasks. If you are interested, please contact the research team at insomnia@ndcn.ox.ac.uk
Volunteers with lazy eye wanted
We are looking for volunteers with a history of lazy eye to take part in our brain scanning study. We are looking for healthy volunteers aged 18-45 with a history of lazy eye. You will also be asked questions about your medical history to check your suitability for an MRI scan. Call 01865 223622 for more information.
Oxford Vaccine Group
The Oxford Vaccine Group is an independent multi-disciplinary (多学科的) clinical trials group. OVG works towards the goal of developing new and improved vaccines for the prevention of infection in adults and children, enhancing the understanding of immunity and studying the epidemiology of infectious diseases. To get more information, please see the OVG website.
Oxford Experimental lab for the Social Sciences
The Oxford Internet Institute, together with the Business School, is recruiting individuals to participate in computer-based experiments involving online surfing behavior as well as economic and political decision-making. We pay our subjects well, there are no special skills required and you don’t have to come to the lab in person Contact us at socialscience.study @ox.ac.uk for more information.
1.What is the main purpose of the passage?
A.To offer medical help to patients. B.To look for experienced researchers.
C.To introduce new research programs. D.To recruit volunteers for research projects.
2.The goal of oVG is to________.
A.carry out clinical trials B.produce better vaccines
C.learn more about infection D.study the causes of diseases
3.You can finish the experiment on your home PC if you join________.
A.Oxford Vaccine Group B.Insomnia research group
C.Oxford Experimental lab D.Brain Scanning study group
I Have Two Names
Oyindasola means ''Honey poured into my wealth. '' It's fairly common Nigerian (尼日利亚的) name, mainly used for girls._________, I’m known as Oyindasola but my nickname is Chelsea. Some ask why I don’t use my real _________ and I tell them what my father told me: a story about him _________ Chelsea, South West London a year after I was born. I tell them that this nickname spoke to him so much that it _________ on every birthday cake of mine.
When I was seven, inside the brick walls of our townhouse in New York, we decided to _________ to Nigeria. And my mother needed to know what my family there would call me. The nickname I’d been called for as long as I could _________ or the complex name on my passport? A simple question. But it tore me apart.
A week later we found ourselves at an airport with groups of Nigerians speaking as we _________ for our cab. After a week of getting used to the spicier foods, and sharper scents, I fell into _________. Soon, my memories of Disney in America were _________ with sounds of Nigerian music. My tongue grew heavier with Nigerian __________, and the words shared between my mother and grandmother in their native tongue finally __________. But, I still wasn't Nigerian enough. Their unfriendly looks and __________ were a constant reminder of who I was: an American girl with the westernized name. So I wasn't __________ sad when my mother announced our back to America for her work.
On the first day of middle school in America, __________ coursed through me because I knew my birth name wouldn't __________ the attendance list just as I couldn't fail to draw others' attention. I was __________ when the teacher mispronounced my painfully long name and my classmates laughed.
But with every passing year, came new __________. Every new attendance roll (考勤) call was responded with a braver voice and a __________ smile. That long name, mispronounced or not, is mine. The Nigerian accent slipping through is mine. Who I am is simple: a Nigerian girl with __________ to the American dream, a girl with two __________ and two names.
1.A.Luckily B.Frankly C.Legally D.Obviously
2.A.origin B.name C.identity D.signature
3.A.visiting B.describing C.abandoning D.leaving
4.A.competed B.happened C.passed D.appeared
5.A.drive B.move C.pace D.walk
6.A.imagine B.predict C.remember D.survive
7.A.headed B.answered C.changed D.turned
8.A.conversations B.chaos C.desperation D.routine
9.A.connected B.replaced C.faced D.decorated
10.A.recreation B.lifestyle C.accent D.diet
11.A.made sense B.took shape C.died away D.ran out
12.A.gifts B.decisions C.negotiations D.remarks
13.A.rarely B.really C.perfectly D.nervously
14.A.anxiety B.disappointment C.rudeness D.shock
15.A.form B.throw C.ruin D.escape
16.A.guilty B.regretful C.embarrassed D.confused
17.A.sympathy B.confidence C.generosity D.honesty
18.A.kinder B.weaker C.wider D.friendlier
19.A.reaction B.objection C.response D.access
20.A.languages B.advantages C.degrees D.occupations
假定你是某某学校高中学生李华，因新冠肺炎疫情还未得到有效控制，省教育厅宣布延期开学，请你写一封英文通知发布在校园网上。要点如下：1.严禁学生假期到校；2.远程教育，在线心理辅导；3. 如有调整，另行通知。
注意：1.词数80左右；2.可以适当增加细节，以使行文连贯。
参考词汇：疫情 epidemic教育部 Ministry of Education 在线心理辅导 online psychological guidance新冠状病毒novel coronavirus
Notice
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
