单选题

Medicine Award Kicks off Nobel Prize Announcements

Two scientists who have won praise for research into the growth of cancer cells could be candidates for the Nobel Prize in medicine when the 2008 winners are presented on Monday, kicking off six days of Nobel announcements.
Australian-born US citizen Elizabeth Blackburn and American Carol Greider have already won a series of medical honors for their enzyme (酶) research and experts say they could be among the front-runners for a Nobel.
Among the pair"s possible rivals are Frenchman Pierre Chambon and Americans Ronald Evans and Elwood Jensen, who opened up the field of studying proteins called nuclear hormone receptors (受体).
As usual, the tight-lipped award committee is giving no hints about who is in the running before presenting its decision in a news conference at Stockholm"s Karolinska Institute.
Alfred Nobel, the Swede who invented dynamite (炸), established the prizes in his will in the categories of medicine, physics, chemistry, literature and peace. The economics prize is technically not a Nobel but a 1968 creation of Sweden"s central bank.
Nobel left few instructions on how to select winners, but medicine winners are typically awarded for a specific breakthrough rather than a body of research.
Hans Jornvall, secretary of the medicine prize committee, said the 10 million kronor (瑞典克朗) (US $1.3 million) prize encourages groundbreaking research but he did not think winning it was the primary, goal for scientists.
"Individual researchers probably don"t look at themselves as potential Nobel Prize winners when they"re at work," Jornvall told The Associated Press. "They get their kicks from their research and their interest in how life functions."
In 2006, Blackburn, of the University of California, San Francisco, and Greider, of Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, shared the Lasker prize for basic medical research with Jack Szostak of Harvard Medical School. Their work set the stage for research suggesting that cancer cells use telomerase (端粒酶) to sustain (维持) their uncontrolled growth.

单选题 Who is most unlikely to win the Nobel Prize in medicine?

【正确答案】 C

【答案解析】[解析] 事实细节题。根据第二段“Australian-born US citizen Elizabeth Blackburn and American Carol Greider have already won a series of medical honors for their enzyme research and experts say the could be among the front-runners for a Nobel”可知，出生于澳大利亚的美国人伊丽莎白·布莱克本和另外一个美国人开罗·格雷德已经因为他们的酶研究赢得了一系列医学方面的荣誉，专家认为他们最有可能获得这次的诺贝尔医学奖。文章第三段中的“Among the pair"s possible rivals are Frenchman Pierre Chambon and Americans Ronald Evans and Elwood Jensen”提到，布莱克本和格雷德的竞争对手有来自法国的皮埃尔·尚本、来自美国的罗纳德·依文斯和艾尔伍德·杰森，所以排除A，B，D。文章第七段中的“Hans Jornvall，secretary of the medicine prize committee”说到，汉斯·乔恩瓦是医学奖委员会秘书，并非提名者，所以也不会拿奖，故选C。

单选题 Which is NOT true of Alfred Nobel?

【正确答案】 D

【答案解析】[解析] 事实细节题。第五段第一句“Alfred Nobel, the Swede who invented dynamite, established the prizes in his will”提到，阿尔弗雷德·诺贝尔是瑞典人，他发明了炸药，并在遗嘱里确立了诺贝尔奖，选项A，B，C叙述正确。根据第六段第一句“Nobel left few instructions on how to select winners”可知，诺贝尔没有留下关于如何评奖的指导，故选择D。

单选题 Originally the Nobel Prizes did NOT include ______.

单选题 The word "kicks" in Paragraph 8 probably means ______.

【正确答案】 A

【答案解析】[解析] 词义猜测题。由文章第八段第一句话中的“Individual researchers probably don"t look at themselves as potential Nobel Prize winners when they"re at work”不难看出，科学家搞研究的主要目的不是为了获奖，他们从其所从事的研究以及对生命运行方式的兴趣中获得快乐。故选A。money金钱；respect尊重；knowledge知识。