单选题

In an uncritical August 11, 1997, World News Tonight report on "diamagnetic therapy," a physical therapist explained that "magnets are another form of electric energy that we now think has a powerful effect on bodies." A fellow selling $ 89 magnets proclaimed: "All humans are magnetic. Every cell has a positive and negative side of it."
On the positive side, these magnets are so weak that they cause no harm. On the negative side, these magnets do have the remarkable power of attracting the pocketbooks of gullible Americans to the tune of about $ 300 million a year. They range in scale from coin- sized patches to mattresses, and their curative powers are said to be nearly limitless, based on the {{U}}premise{{/U}} that magnetic fields increase blood circulation and enrich oxygen supplies because of the iron pressure in the blood.
This is fantastic flapdoodle and a financial flimflam. Iron atoms in a magnet are crammed together in a solid state about one atom apart from one another. In your blood only four iron atoms are allocated to each hemoglobin molecule, and they are separated by distances too great to form a magnet. This is easily rested by picking your finger and placing a drop of your blood next to a magnet.
What about claims that magnets attenuate pain? In a 1997 Baylor College of Medicine double-blind study of 50 patients (in which 29 got real magnets and 21 got sham ones), 76 percent in the experimental group but just 19 percent in the control group reported a reduction in pain. Unfortunately, this study included only one 45-minute treatment, did not try other pain-reduction {{U}}modalities{{/U}}, did not record the length of the pain reduction and has never been replicated.
Scientists studying magnetic therapy would do well to read the 1784 "Report of the Commissioners Charged by the King to Examine Animal Magnetism" (reprinted in an English translation in Skeptic, Vol. 4, No. 3). The report was instituted by French King Louis XVI and conducted by Benjamin Franklin and Antoine Lavoisier to experimentally test the claims of German physician Franz Anton Mesmer, discoverer of "animal magnetism." Mesmer reasoned that just as an invisible force of magnetism draws iron shavings to a lodestone, so does an invisible force of animal magnetism flow through living beings.

单选题 What does the passage mainly talk about?

【正确答案】 A

【答案解析】[分析] 主旨题型本文第一段就介绍了文章要谈的主题：World News Tonight上报道了“diamagnetic therapy”，随之谈到了一个运用物理疗法医治病人的医学家认为“magnets are another form of electric energy that we now think has a powerful effect on bodies.”(目前我们认为磁体是另一种会对人体产生巨大作用的电能)，后面几段则谈了磁体对人可能造成的积极或消极的影响等；因此选项A为答案。

单选题 The word "premise" underlined in Paragraph 2 means ______.

单选题 There is no magnet in blood because ______.

单选题 By "this is fantastic flapdoodle and a financial flimflam," the author probably means______.

单选题 According to the passage, which of the following statements is true?

【正确答案】 A

【答案解析】[分析] 是非题型见第一段第一句：一个医学家认为目前我们认为磁体是另一种会对人体产生巨大作用的电能；文章第三段谈到血液中几乎不带磁性，第四段谈及的磁体治病的功效并没得到证实，最后一段提到德国医师Franz Anton Mesmer发明了“animal magnetism”(动物磁性说)，没说他是发现磁性存在的第一个人；因此只有选项A为答案。

单选题 Which of the following is NOT the way the iron atoms in a magnet are distributed in our blood?

单选题 The statement "magnets attenuate pain" can be paraphrased as ______.

单选题 The word "modalities" underlined in Paragraph 4 most probably means ______.

【正确答案】 D

【答案解析】[分析] 词义题型见第四段第三句：不幸的是，这项研究只包括了一项持续了45分钟的治疗，而没有尝试其他的减轻痛苦的______，也没有记录下痛苦减轻的时间，此外也没有再做复现试验；答案只可能从B、D中选择；另外，此处的治疗指的是“磁疗法”，在第一段中提至，“magnets are another form of electric energy that we now think has a powerful effect on bodies.”，因此选项D为答案。