"I have great confidence that by the end of the decade we’ll know in vast detail how cancer cells arise," says microbiologist Ro

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问题     "I have great confidence that by the end of the decade we’ll know in vast detail how cancer cells arise," says microbiologist Robert Weinberg, an expert on cancer. "But," he cautions, "some people may have the idea that once one understands the causes, the cure will rapidly follow. Consider Pasteur. He discovered the causes of many kinds of infections, but it was fifty or sixty years before cures were available."
    This year, 50 percent of the 910 000 people who suffer from cancer will survive at least five years. In the year 2000, the National Cancer Institute estimates, that figure will be 75 percent. For some skin cancers, the five-year survival rate is as high as 90 percent. But other survival statistics are still discouraging—13 percent for lung cancer, and 2 percent for cancer of the pancreas.
    With as many as 120 varieties in existence, discovering how cancer works is not easy. The researchers made great progress in the early 1970s, when they discovered that oncogenes, which are cancer-causing genes, are inactive in normal cells. Anything from cosmic rays to radiation to diet may activate a dormant oncogene, but how remains unknown. If several oncogenes are driven into action, the cell, unable to turn them off, becomes cancerous.
    The exact mechanisms involved are still mysterious, but the likelihood that many cancers are initiated at the level of genes suggests that we will never prevent all cancers. "Changes are a normal part of the evolutionary process," says oncologist William Hayward. Environmental factors can never be totally eliminated; as Hayward points out, "We can’t prepare a medicine against cosmic rays."
    The prospects for cure, though still distant, are brighter. "First, we need to understand how the normal cell controls itself. Second, we have to determine whether there are a limited number of genes in cells which are always responsible for at least part of the trouble. If we can understand how cancer works, we can counteract its action."
According to Paragraph 4, all the following are true EXCEPT ______.

选项 A、cancers will never be completely cured for good
B、the exact reason for cancer still remains unknown
C、environmental factors can never be prepared against
D、normal changes do no harm to our health

答案D

解析 选项D对应第四段的第二句,这句话意为“变化在进化的过程中是非常普遍的”。因此D选项说“正常的变化对我们的健康无害”是无中生有。选项A对应本段的第一句后半段。选项B对应本段第一句的前半段,其中的mysterious意为“神秘的;无知的”。选项C对应本段最后一句话,文中提到,“环境方面的因素永远无法被完全消除”,也就是说“我们永远没有办法准备应对环境因素导致的癌症”,选项C是一个同义替换,故正确。
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