Diarrhea, the modem word, resembles the old Greek expression for "a flowing through." Ancient Egyptian doctors left descriptions of the suffering of Pharaohs scratched on papyrus even before Hippocrates, the old Greek, gave it a name few people can spell correctly. An equal opportunity affliction, diarrhea has laid low kings and common men, women, and children for at least as long as historians have recorded such fascinating trivia. It wiped out, almost, more soldiers in America's Civil War than guns and swords. In the developing world today, acute diarrhea strikes more than one billion humans every year, and leaves more than five million dead, usually the very young. Diarrhea remains one of the two most common medical complaints of humanity.
"Frequent passage of unformed watery bowel movements," as described by Taver's Cyclopedic Medical Dictionary, diarrhea falls into two broad types: invasive and non-invasive. From bacterial sources, invasive diarrhea, sometimes called "dysentery," attacks the lower intestinal wall causing inflammation, abscesses, and ulcers that may lead to mucus and blood (often "black blood" from the action of digestive juices) in the stools, high fever, "stomach" crams from the depths of hell, and significant amounts of body fluid rushing from the patient's nether region. Serious debilitation, even death, can occur from the resulting dehydration and from the spread of the bacteria to other parts of the body. Non-invasive diarrheas grow from colonies of microscopic evil-doers that set up housekeeping on, but do not invade, intestinal walls. Toxins released by the colonies cause cramps, nausea, vomiting, and massive gushes of fluid from the patient's lower intestinal tract. Non-invasive diarrhea carries a high risk for dehydration.
In Paragraph 1, the author uses the quoted word "grief" from Shakespeare to refer to ______.
A. the terrible weather
B. the stern army life
C. the suffering from diarrhea
D. the tough wartime
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Everywhere we turn, we see the symbolic process at work. There are 【C1】______ things men do or want to do, possess or want to possess, that have not a symbolic value.
Almost all fashionable clothes are 【C2】______ symbolic, so is food. We 【C3】______ our furniture to serve 【C4】______ visible symbols of our taste, wealth, and social position. We often choose our houses 【C5】______ the basis of a feeling that it "looks well" to have a "good address." We trade perfectly good cars in for 【C6】______ models not always to get better transportation, but to give 【C7】______ to the community that we can 【C8】______ it.
Such complicated and apparently 【C9】______ behavior. leads philosophers to ask over and over again, "why can't human beings 【C10】______ simply and naturally." Often the complexity of human life makes us look enviously at the relative 【C11】______ of such live as dogs and cats. Simply, the fact that symbolic process makes complexity possible is no 【C12】______ for wanting to 【C13】______ to a cat and to a cat-and-dog existence. A better solution is to understand the symbolic process 【C14】______ instead of being its slaves we become, to some degree at least, its 【C15】______.
【C1】______
A. many
B. some
C. few
D. enough
Although the Solar Decathlon's purpose is to advertise the benefits of electricity-generating solar panels and other residential solar gadgets, the bad weather has made it hard to ignore the limitations. As fate so amply demonstrated, not every day is a sunny day, and indeed DOE's "Solar Village on the National Mall" has received very little of what it needs to nm.
Since solar is not an always available energy source, even a community consisting entirely of solar homes and businesses would still need to be connected to a constantly-running power plant (most likely natural gas or coal fired) to provide reliable electricity. For this reason, the fossil fuel savings and environmental benefits of solar are considerably smaller than many proponents suggest.
Washington, D.C. gets its share of sunny days as well, but even so, solar equipment provides only a modest amount of energy in relation to its cost. In fact, a $5,000 rooftop photovoltaic system typically generates no more than $100 of electricity per year, providing a rate of return comparable to a passbook savings account.
Nor do the costs end when the system is installed. Like anything exposed to the elements, solar equipment is subject to wear and storm damage, and may need ongoing maintenance and repairs. In addition, the materials that turn sunlight into electricity degrade over time. Thus, solar panels will eventually need to be replaced, most likely before the investment has fully paid itself off in the form. of reduced utility bills.
Solar energy has always had its share of true believers willing to pay extra to feel good about their homes and themselves. But for homeowners who view it as an investment, it is not a good one. The economic realities are rarely acknowledged by the government officials and solar equipment manufactures involved in the Solar Decathlon and similarly one-sided promotions. By failing to be objective, the pro-solar crowd does consumers a real disservice.
The Solar Decathlon is most probably the name of a ______.
A. technology
B. contest
C. strategy
D. machine
What can be concluded form. the passage about the characteristics of oratorios?
A. They are primarily performed by professionals.
B. They vary little from one performance to another.
C. They are composed entirely of solos.
D. They are carelessly scheduled.
African elephants have been slaughtered at alarming rate over the past decade, largely because they are the primary source of the world's ivory. Their population has been dwindled from 1.3 million in 1979 to just 625,000 today, and the rate of killing has been accelerating in recent years because many of the older, bigger tusked animals have already been destroyed. "The poachers now must kill times as. many elephants to get the same quantity of ivory. "explained Curtis Bohlen, Senior vice president of the World Wildlife Fund.
Though its record on the environment has been spotty so far, the government last week took the lead in a major conservation issue by imposing a ban on ivory imports into the US. The move came just four days after a consortium of conservation groups, including the World Wildlife Fund and Wildlife Conservation International, called for that kind of action, and it made the US the first nation to forbid imports of both raw and finished ivory. The ban, says Bohlen, sends a very clear message to the ivory poachers that the game is over.
In the past African nations have resisted an ivory ban, but increasingly they realized that the decimation of the elephant herds poses a serious threat to their tourist business, Last month Tanzania and several other African countries called for an amendment to the 102 nation Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species that would make the ivory trade illegal world wide. The amendment is expected to be approved at an October meeting in Geneva and to go into effect next January. But between now and then, conservationists contend, poachers may go on a rampage, killing elephants wholesale, so nations should unilaterally forbid imports right away. The US government brought that argument, and by week's end the twelve nation European Community had followed with its own ban.
Which of the following is the best title for the passage?
African Elephants and the Ivory Trade;
B. A Bid to Save the Elephant.
C. The Poachers.
D. Elephants in Danger.