单选题 The idea of test-tube babies may make you either delighted at the wonders of modern medicine or irritated while considering the moral, or legal, or technological implications of starting life in a laboratory. But if you"ve ever been pregnant yourself, one thing is certain: You wonder what it"s like to carry a test-tube baby. Are these pregnancies normal? Are the babies normal?
The earliest answers come from Australia, where a group of medical experts at the Queen Victoria Medical Center in Melbourne have taken a look at the continent"s first nine successful in vitro pregnancies. The Australians report that the pregnancies themselves seemed to proceed according to plan, but at birth some unusual trends did show up. Seven of the nine babies turned out to be girls. Six of the nine were delivered by Caesarean section. Undone baby, a twin, was born with a serious heart defect and a few days later developed life-threatening problems.
What does it all mean? Even the doctors don"t know for sure, because the numbers are so small. The proportion of girls to boys is high, but until there are many more test-tube babies none will know whether that"s something that just happened to be like that or something special that happens when egg meets sperm in a test tube instead of a Fallopian tube. The same thing is true of the single heart defect; it usually shows up in only 15 out of 60,000 births in that part of Australia, but the fact that it occurred in one out of nine test-tube babies does not necessarily mean that they are at special risk. One thing the doctors can explain is the high number of Caesareans. Most of the mothers were older, had long histories of fertility problems and in some cases had had surgery on the fallopian tubes, all of which made them likely candidates for Caesareans anyway.
The Australian researchers report that they are quite encouraged. All the babies are now making normal progress even the twin with the birth defects.

单选题 What would people be most concerned about according to the author?

单选题 What does the Latin word "in vitro" (paragraph two) most probably mean?

【正确答案】 B

【答案解析】[解析] 推理题。找到“in vitro”所在的那句话“The earliest answers come from Australia, where a group of medical expels at the Queen Victoria Medical Center in Melbourne have taken a look at the continent"s first nine successful in vitro pregnancies. ”而这句话的前一句是人们担心试管婴儿从怀孕到出生是否正常，而接下来说“最早的答案来自于澳大利亚墨尔本维多利亚女王医学中心的一组医学专家，他们观察了澳大利亚头九例in vitro怀孕。”由此来推断in vitro应该是试管。

单选题 The Australian experiment of the test-tube babies has the following unusual trends except that ______.

【正确答案】 D

【答案解析】[解析] 细节题。从第二段第二句话开始到第五句“...but at birth some unusual trends did show up. Seven of the nine babies turned out to be girls. Six of the nine were delivered by Caesarean section. Undone baby,..., was born with a serious heart defect and a few days later developed life-threatening problems. ”(……但是出生的时候确实出现了一些不同寻常的趋势。九个婴儿中七个是女孩，六个是剖腹产，还有一个出生时就有严重的心脏病，几天后发展成为威胁生命的问题。)这里提到了A、B、C三个选项的内容，没有提到D选项，因此选D。

单选题 Which of the following explanations regarding the high number of Caesarean operations is NOT true?

【正确答案】 C

【答案解析】[解析] 推理题。根据第三段的最后两句话“One thing the doctors can explain is the high number of Caesareans. Most of the mothers were older, had long histories of fertility problems and in some cases had had surgery on the fallopian tubes, all of which made them likely candidates for Caesareans anyway. ”(医生唯一可以解释的是较高的剖腹产率。大部分母亲年纪比较大，长期患有生育问题，有些还在输卵管上做过手术，所有这些使得她们很可能需要进行剖腹产。)

单选题 What is the author"s attitude toward the idea of test-tube babies?

【正确答案】 A

【答案解析】[解析] 态度题。根据最后一段“The Australian researchers report that they are quite encouraged. All the babies are now making normal progress even the twin with the birth defects. ”(澳大利亚研究者报告称他们非常受鼓舞。所有的试管婴儿现在的进展非常正常，甚至患有先天心脏病的那个孩子也很正常。)可以看出作者是非常乐观的。