单选题 {{B}}Text 2{{/B}}
When a 13-year-old Virginia girl started sneezing, her parents thought it was merely a cold. But when the sneezes continued for hours, they called in a doctor. Nearly two months later the girl was still sneezing, thousands of times a day, and her case had attracted world-wide attention.
Hundreds of suggestions, ranging from "put a clothes pin on her nose" to "have her stand on her head" poured in. But nothing did any good. Finally, she was taken to Johns Hopkins Hospital where Dr Leo Kanner, one of the world's top authorities on sneezing, solved the baffling problem with great speed.
He used neither drugs nor surgery for, curiously enough, the clue for the treatment was found in an ancient superstition about the amazing bodily reaction we call the sneeze. It was all in her mind, be said, a view which Aristotle, some 3 000 years earlier, would have agreed with heartily.
Dr Kanner simply gave a modern psychological interpretation to the ancient belief that too much sneezing was an indication that the spirit was troubled; and he began to treat the girl accordingly.
"Less than two days in a hospital room, a plan for better scholastic and vocational adjustment, and reassurance about her unreasonable fear of tuberculosis quickly changed her from a sneezer to an ex-sneezer," he reported.
Sneezing has always been a subject of wonder, awe and puzzlement. Dr Kanner has collected thousands of superstitions concerning it. The most universal one is the custom of begging for the blessing of God when a person sneezes -- a practice Dr Kanner traces back to the ancient belief that a sneeze was an indication that the sneezer was possessed of an evil spirit. Strangely, people all over the world still continue the custom with the traditional "God bless you" or its equivalent.
When scientists look at the sneeze, they see a remarkable mechanism which, without any conscious help from you, takes on a job that has to be done. When you need to sneeze you sneeze, this being nature's clever way of getting rid of an annoying object from the nose. The object may be just some dust in the nose which nature is striving to remove.
单选题 The girl sneezed continuously because she ______.
【正确答案】 C
【答案解析】分析推理题。文章第三、四、五段通过Dr Kanner的话分析了女孩打喷嚏的原因。由第三段最后一句中的It was all in her mind、第四段中的the spirit was troubled及第五段的内容(特别是其中的her unreasonable fear of tuberculosis)可以推知女孩是心理上的问题，因为害怕自己得的是肺结核而从普通的打喷嚏发展到不停地打喷嚏，因此答案是[C] 。
单选题 When the girl began to sneeze continuously ______.
【正确答案】 A
【答案解析】文章第一、二段介绍了女孩开始不停地打喷嚏后人们对她的关注情况。其中第二段第一句指出：Hundreds of suggestions…poured in，其中的suggestions对应于[A] 中的advice。
单选题 Dr Kanner cured the girl by ______.
【正确答案】 B
【答案解析】细节题。答案见于第四段一句。当然，由第三段所说的：He used neither drugs nor surgery等也可推知他对女孩进行的是心理治疗。
单选题 When a person sneezes, we say "God bless you" because ______.
【正确答案】 A
【答案解析】细节题。文章第六段提到关于打喷嚏时的迷信观念，并举打喷嚏时说“God bless you”为例。由其中的custom与traditional两词可确定答案为[A] 。其他三项都不合文章对这一迷信观念的说明。
单选题 According to scientists, people sneeze because ______.
【正确答案】 B
【答案解析】细节题。答案信息对应于文章倒数第二句：．．．this being nature's clever way…，并且前面一句中也提到了has to be done、后面一句中又提到了nature一词，说明打喷嚏是一种自然行为，选[B] 。