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  3. The immune system is equal in complexity to the combined intricacies of the brain and nervous system. The success of the immune

The immune system is equal in complexity to the combined intricacies of the brain and nervous system. The success of the immune

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问题     The immune system is equal in complexity to the combined intricacies of the brain and nervous system. The success of the immune system in defending the body relies on a dynamic regulatory communications network consisting of millions and millions of cells. Organized into sets and subsets, these cells pass information back and forth like clouds of bees swarming around a hive. The result is a sensitive system of checks and balances that produces an immune response that is prompt, appropriate, effective and self-limiting.
    At the heart of the immune system is the ability to distinguish between self and non-self. When immune defenders encounter cells or organisms carrying foreign or non-self molecules, the immune troops move quickly to eliminate the invaders. Virtually every body cell carries distinctive molecules that identify it as self. The body’s immune defenses do not normally attack tissues that carry a self marker. Rather, immune cells and other body cells coexist peaceably in a state known as self-tolerance. When a normally functioning immune system attacks a non-self molecule, the system has the ability to remember the specifics of the foreign body. Upon subsequent encounters with the same species of molecules, the immune system reacts accordingly. With the possible exception of antibodies passed during lactation, this so-called immune system memory is not inherited. Despite the occurrence of a virus in your family, your immune system must learn from experience with the many millions of distinctive non-self molecules in the sea of microbes in which we live. Learning necessitates producing the appropriate molecules and cells to match up with and counteract each non-self invader.
    Any substance capable of stimulating an immune response is called an antigen. Tissues or cells from another individual (except an identical twin, whose cells carry identical self-markers) act as antigens; because the immune system recognizes transplanted tissues as foreign, it rejects them. The body will even reject nourishing proteins unless they are first broken down by the digestive system into their primary, non-antigenic building blocks. An antigen announces its foreignness by means of intricate and characteristic shapes called epitopes, which stick out from its surface. Most antigens, even the simplest microbes, carry several different kinds of epitopes on their surface, some may even carry several hundred. Some epitopes will be more effective than others at stimulating an immune response. Only in abnormal situations does the immune system wrongly identify self as non-self and execute a misdirected immune attack. The result can be so-called autoimmune disease. The painful side effects of these diseases are caused by a person’s immune system actually attacking itself.
The main idea of the text may be generalized as_________.
选项 A、the success of the immune system in distinguishing foreign substances
B、the normal and abnormal activities of the immune system in the body
C、the unfavorable effects of the immune system on organ transplantation
D、the essential duties of the immune system in guarding the body
答案D
解析 主旨题。此题要求概括全文主旨。全文第一段对免疫系统的组成进行介绍，后文对免疫系统的功能进行介绍，只有[D]符合要求。其余三项均未抓住要点。[B]中的abnormal activities(不正常作用)只在文章末尾提到一下，并非此文的主要内容。
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考研英语一

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