About influenza  A(H7N9) virus What is the influenza A(H7N9) virus? Influenza A H7 viruses are a group of influenza viruses that normally spread among birds. The influenza A(H7N9) virus is one smaller group among the larger group of H7 viruses. Although some H7 viruses (H7N2, H7N3 and H7N7) have sometimes been found to infect  humans, no human infections with H7N9 viruses have been reported until recent reports from China. What are the main signs of human infection with influenza A(H7N9) virus? So far, most patients with this infection have had severe pneumonia . Signs include fever, cough and shortness of breath. However, information is still limited about the full area of disease that infection with influenza A(H7N9) virus might cause. How did people become infected with the influenza A(H7N9) virus? Some of the confirmed cases had connections with animals or with an animal environment. The virus has been found in a pigeon in a market in Shanghai. It is not yet known how persons became infected. The possibility of animal-to-human spread is being looked into. Is it safe to eat meat like chicken and pork products? Influenza viruses are not spread through eating well-cooked food. Because influenza viruses are made inactive by normal temperatures used for cooking (so that food reaches 70degC in all parts), it is safe to eat properly prepared and cooked meat. Diseased animals and animals that have died of diseases should not be eaten. In areas experiencing outbreaks, meat products can be safely eaten only if they are properly cooked and properly handled during food preparation. The eating of raw meat and uncooked blood-based dishes is a high-risk practice and should be discouraged. Is it safe to travel to China? The number of confirmed cases in China is very low. WHO does not advise the application of any travel measures with respect to visitors to China, nor to persons leaving China. Are Chinese products safe? There is no evidence to link the present cases with any Chinese products. WHO advises that people... People infected with the influenza A(H7N9) virus may suffer from  _  . A) hard breathing B) anxiety C) sweating D) blooding
A

The biggest hamburger restaurant chain  in the world is McDonald's. It started in 1955 with just one restaurant, but now has more than 20000 worldwide. There are more than 12000 McDonald's restaurants only in the US. You can find them in 100 countries on six continents. There isn't a McDonald's in Antarctica, but I don't suppose they eat hamburgers at the South Pole. When you eat at a McDonald's restaurant you are joining the 35 million people who eat and drink at McDonald's every day, and there are more than one million people who work there. McDonald's has sold 100 billion hamburgers since it opened, and it sells more than 6.8 million pounds of French Fries every day. How do you like your hamburger restaurant? There are old McDonald's ---- part of one restaurant in England is 600 years old. There are elegant  McDonald's ---- there is one on the Champs Elysees in Paris. There are cool McDonald's ---- there is one in Hollywood. There are McDonald's restaurants on ships and trains, in hospitals and zoos, in airports and in colleges. Clearly many people like the speed, hygiene  and cheapness of fast food restaurants. However, not everyone likes fast food. Some people question the nutritional value of the food; some people think the fast food causes too much waste and pollution. So the fast food business gives us _ , as well as convenient, affordable meals. From the passage we can infer that   _  . A) there are McDonald's of different styles to meet different customers B) the writer encourage more people to eat hamburgers C) the writer thinks people should stop eating hamburgers D) hamburgers are of great nutritional value
A

She's not afraid of anything. Snakes? No problem. Walking alone in the dark? Easy. We're not talking about a superhero here -- SM is a 44-year-old mother.  And she's fearless because she happens to be missing part of her brain: the amygdala . Shaped like a pair of almonds sitting in the middle of your brain, the amygdala helps control fear and anxiety. A rare condition called Urbach-Wiethe disease left SM without her amygdala, and seems to have completely erased her sense of fear. To try to understand how the amygdala works, a team of researchers made their efforts to scare SM. They showed her horror movies and took her to the Waverly Hills Sanatorium Haunted House in Kentucky. She pushed out one of the monsters  and laughed. SM said she didn't like snakes, but at a pet store full of poisonous creatures, she kept asking to touch them. When asked to rate her feelings, SM reported feeling surprised or disgusted, but never fearful. "She tends to approach everything she should be avoiding," says Justin Feinstein of the  University of Iowa. This means the amygdala could control deeper urges to approach or avoid danger. Other scientists have a different opinion, though.  "I don't believe you can make a general statement about what the amygdala does by a single case study," Elizabeth Phelps said. In 2002, Phelps published a study on a similar patient with amygdala damage who still showed fear. It may sound like fun to be totally fearless, but we get scared for a good reason. "The nature of fear is survival and the amygdala helps us stay alive by avoiding situations, people, or objects that put our life in danger," Feinstein said. SM was once followed in a park after dark by a man with a knife, and she simply walked away. "It is quite remarkable that she is still alive," said Feinstein. Researchers tried their best to frighten SM in order to find   _  . A) The function of a particular organ B) SM's reaction of fear and anxiety C) The process of removing amygdale D) A special way to get along with monsters
A

Is it time to kick Russia out of the BRICs  ?If so, it may end up sounding like a famous ball-point pen maker--BIC. An argument is being made that Goldman Sach's famous marketing device  , the BRICs, should really be the BICs. "Is Russia really worth the name BRICs?" asks Anders Aslund, senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics, in an article for Foreign Policy. Aslund, who is also co-author with Andrew Kuchins of "The Russian Balance Sheet", thinks the Russia of Putin and Medvedev is just not worthy of inclusion alongside Brazil, India and China in the list of future economic powerhouses. He writes: "The country's economic performance has fallen to such a weak level that one must ask whether it has any say at all on the global economy, compared with the other members of its group. I have just returned from Moscow, which is always dull around this season. For the last seven years, Russia has taken very few measures to improve its economy. Instead, the state has been living on oil and gas." Economically, Aslund has the numbers on his side. The International Monetary Fund figures that the Russian economy will fall by 6.7 percent in 2009, while China will grow 8.5 percent and India 5.4 percent. There is less of a case for Brazil, with a fall of 0.7 percent, but it is still doing far better than Russia. But the BRICs are not just about economy. As is mentioned above, it is a marketing device to encourage investors   to focus on the big promising players. From an investment standpoint, it could be argued that Russia is leading the BRICs. Its stock market is up 128 percent this year while around 80 percent is for the other three. At very least, despite Russia's economic underperformance, its stock market outperformance does suggest it is indeed one of the group. According to the passage, which country will enjoy the biggest increase in 2009? A) China B) Russia C) Brazil D) India

A