How far would you be willing to go to satisfy your need to know? Far enough to find out your possibility of dying from a terrible disease? These days that’s more than an academic question, as Tracy Smith reports in our Cover Story.
There are now more than a thousand genetic tests, for everything from baldness to breast cancer, and the list is growing. Question is, do you really want to know what might eventually kill you? For instance, Nobel Prize-winning scientist James Watson, one of the first people to map their entire genetic makeup, is said to have asked not to be told if he were at a higher risk for Alzheimer’（老年痴呆症）.
“If I tell you that you have an increased risk of getting a terrible disease, that could weigh on your mind and make you anxious, through which you see the rest of your life as you wait for that disease to hit you. It could really mess you up.” Said Dr. Robert Green, a Harvard geneticist.
“Every ache and pain,” Smith suggested, “could be understood as the beginning of the end.” “That ’s right. If you ever worried you were at risk for Alzheimer’s disease, then every time you can’t find your car in the parking lot, you think the disease has started.”
Dr. Green has been thinking about this issue for years. He led a study of people who wanted to know if they were at a higher genetic risk for Alzheimer’s. It was thought that people who got bad news would, for lack of a better medical term, freak out. But Green and his team found that there was “no significant difference” between how people handled good news and possibly the worst news of their lives. In fact, most people think they can handle it. People who ask for the information usually can handle the information, good or bad, said Green.
小题1:Which of the following is true about James Watson？
A．He doesn’t want to know his chance of getting a disease.
B．He is strongly in favor of the present genetic tests.
C．He believes genetic mapping can help cure any disease.
D．He is more likely to suffer from Alzheimer’s disease.小题2:The first paragraph is meant to__________.
A．ask some questions
B．satisfy readers’ curiosity
C．introduce the topic
D．describe an academic fact小题3:According to Paragraphs 3 and 4, if a person is at a higher genetic risk, it is__________.
A．necessary to remove his anxiety
B．impossible to hide his disease
C．better to inform him immediately
D．advisable not to let him know小题4:The underlined part “freak out” in Paragraph 5 is closest in meaning to“_________”.
A．leave off
B．break down
C．drop out
D．turn away小题5:The study led by Dr. Green indicates that people__________.
A．can accept some bad news
B．tend to find out the truth
C．prefer to hear good news
D．have the right to be informed
