单考英语考研阅读理解高分特训100篇
科普科技类（Passage23—33）
Passage23字数：436
You are what you eat,or so the saying goes.But a new generation of molecular biologists is starting to give that old adage a decidedly high-tech twist.By combining the latest discoveries in human genetics with a deeper understanding of the hundreds of compounds found in food,investigators have begun to tea apart some of the more complex interactions between your diet and your DNA.In the process,they hope eventually to give consumers more personalized advice about what to eat and drink to stave off heart dia,cancer and other chronic conditions of aging.“We are trying to put more science behind the nutrition,”says Jo Cordovans,a geneticist at the Friedman School of Nutrition at Tufts.
Do you drink three cups or more of coffee a day?Genetic tests can now determine whether you—like approximately10%to20%of the population—have a specific genetic variation that makes it harder for yo
ur body to absorb calcium in the prence of caffeine,thus increasing your rate of bone loss.
This area of rearch is so new,there’s still a bit of a debate over what exactly to call it.Nutritional genetics?Nutritional genomic?Nutrigenomics?But by any name,the field is growing fast.Indeed,some start-up companies simply aren’t waiting for all the scientific mysteries and subtleties to be worked out and have begun to offer tests for a limited number of gene-nutrient interactions directly to
consumers.
None of tho genetic variations are immediately life threatening.In fact,most of them have no apparent effect.The variants are not like the mutations most of US learned about in school—alterations that cau entire genes or ries of genes to malfunction and that result in dias like sickle-cell anemia and cystic fibrosis. Instead the changes nutritional geneticists are looking for are more like normal variations in the correct spelling of a word—say,theatre or theater,depending on whether you speak the Queen’s English or American.
Rearchers now have a good reference guide for the25,000or so genes of the human genome and
the more than3million common variants that lurk within tho genes.They still need to figure out how all tho genetic variables relate to health and dia.Add the fact that food is full of hundreds of bioactive compounds,each of which varies depending on where plants are grown or animals are raid,and you’ve got quite a lot of information to puzzle out.In the end,you’ll probably find out you still need to eat your broccoli.But at least you’ll have a better understanding of why.
【文章大意】
文章首段指出现在科学家开始利用现代技术找出饮食和疾病之间的关系。第二段举喝咖啡可能会导致骨质流失为例来说明基因测试能实现的功能。第三段该研究领域仍存在争议，但一些公司却迫不及待的向用户提供这种服务。第四段这些基因变化不会威胁到生命，科学家希望找到的是能够在正常范围内的变化。最后一段科学家现在已有一定的参考资料，但仍需找出基因的变化是如何与疾病和健康相连的。研究的结果可能不会对生活产生太大改变，
但至少我们会知道为什么要这样做。
1.The aim of the new rearch is to______.
[A]find nutritious food
[B]analyze personal DNA
[C]make a person’s diet fit his genes
[D]make more discoveries
2.If you are among the population who has a specific genetic variation mentioned in paragraph2,you’d better______.
[A]drink more coffee
[B]not drink tea
[C]drink more coco cola
[D]not drink milk
3.Which is NOT true about gene-nutrient rearch?
[A]It’s very new.
[B]It’s developing very fast.
[C]Many companies have begun business in this field.
[D]The field is touched by only scientists.
4.Why does the writer u the example of different spellings of the word theater?
[A]To show that word can be spelt in different ways.
[B]To illustrate that the normal genetic variations have no obvious damage.
[C]To show the difference between British English and American English.
[D]To indicate that genes are just like words.
5.According to the passage,before we have a better understanding of why we need to eat broccoli,______.
[A]we have genes tested
[B]we need to know plenty of information
[C]scientists still have lots of work to do
[D]we should know more about the food
【答案与解析】
1.C细节题。文中第一段指出“investigators have begun to tea apart some of the
more complex interactions between your diet and your DNA”。也就是说，这项研究目的是研究饮食与DNA(即基因)之间的关系，使之更好搭配，有助于人类健康。
2.B细节题。文中第二段指出“在有咖啡因存在的情况下，由于这种基因变异，你很难吸
收得到钙，”而咖啡因主要存在与咖啡和茶内，所以发生这种基因变异的人也最好不要喝茶。
3.B由“Indeed,some start up companies…to offer tests for a limited number of
gene-nutrient interactions directly to consumers”可排除C项，而且明确指出D项是不符合文义的。
4.B细节题。文章倒数第二段最后一句的意思是“营养学家发现：基因变异并不是以前所
认为的那样，会造成重大疾病，而是一些常规变异，就好像“剧院”这个词在英文中有两种拼写方法一样，取决于具体情况。”由此判断B项正确。
5.C细节题。文中最后一段提到“They(scientists)still need to figure out how all tho
genetic variables relate to health and dia”，由此可见，这项技术还没有完成，
因此在能很好地解释我们为什么需要吃椰菜之前，还有很多工作要做。
【词汇词组】
·adage n.格言，谚语；箴言
·tea apart梳理
·stave off避开；延缓
·
genomic adj.基因组的；染色体的
·subtlety n.微妙；敏锐；精明
·variant adj.不同的；多样的
n.变体；转化
·mutation n.[遗]突变；变化；元音变化
·malfunction vi.发生故障；不起作用
n.故障；失灵；疾病
·sickle-cell anemia镰状细胞性贫血
·cystic fibrosis囊胞性纤维症
·lurk vi.潜伏；潜藏；埋伏
n.潜伏；埋伏
Passage24字数：411
Biotech can improve farming productivity in places where food shortages are caud by crop damage attributable to pests,drought,poor soil and crop virus, bacteria or fungi.Damage caud by pests is incredible.Incorporating pest-resistant genes into eds can help restore the balance.In trials of
pest-resistant cotton in Africa yields have incread significantly.So far,fears that genetically modified pest-resistant crops might kill good incts as well as bad appear unfounded.Virus often cau massive failure in staple crops in developing countries.Two years ago Africa lost more than half its cassava crop—a key source of calories to the mosaic virus.Genetically modified virus-resistant crops can reduce that damage,as can drought-tolerant eds in regions where water shortage limit the amount of land under cultivation.Biotech can also help solve the problem of soil that contains excess aluminum,which can damage roots and cau many staple-crop failures.A gene that helps neutralize aluminum toxicity in rice has been identified.Many scientists believe biotech could rai overall crop productivity in developing countries as much as25%and help prevent the loss of tho crops after th
ey are harvested.
Yet,biotech is far from being the whole answer.In developing countries,lost crops are only one cau of hunger.Poverty plays the largest role.Making genetically modified crops available will not reduce hunger if farmers cannot afford to grow them or if the local population cannot afford to buy the food tho farmers produce.Nor can biotech overcome the challenge of distributing food in developing countries.Taken as a whole,the world produces enough food to feed everyone but much of it is simply in the wrong place.Especially in countries with undeveloped transport infrastructures,geography restricts food availability. Biotech has its own“distribution”problems.Private-ctor biotech companies in the rich countries carry out much of the leading-edge rearch on genetically
