《2025年凤凰新学案高中英语必修第一册译林版》

C
Are you afraid of going to the dentist? If so, you’re not alone.
These fears could just be in our heads, however. According to a recent survey by Martin Tickle, a professor at the University of Manchester in the UK, the pain isn’t felt most of the time in dental surgeries. In fact, among the 451 interviewed patients, 75% reported no pain at all during their visits, including situations where they had their teeth pulled out.
Could it be the sound of a drill(钻头) then?
“I found that the sound of drilling can evoke deep worry in dental patients. Actually they don’t have any pain,” Hiroyuki Karibe, a scientist at Nippon Dental University in Tokyo, told The Guardian.
To find the reason why a drill might bring on a racing heart, Karibe divided the volunteers into low-fear and high-fear groups based on how much they feared a trip to the dentist. Volunteers were played the sound of a drill while their brain activities were watched by a machine.
What Karibe found in the low-fear group was increased activity in the areas of the brain relative to auditory processing(听觉处理), which means, for these people, the sound of dental drills is no different from other sounds.
In the high-fear group, however, the brain area that was activated(激活) was different. It was the area that carries out a number of duties, including learning, feelings and, most importantly, memory. This means that these volunteers not only heard the sound, but they remembered it—they made connections between the sound of a drill and the worry it produced in the past, causing their worry to return.
Understanding how brains reply to the sounds of dentists’ drills could help scientists find ways to make patients more relaxed, according to Karibe, because patients who worry about going to the dentist might keep putting off their visits. But the best way is to keep your teeth healthy.
8. How does the writer explain that the pain isn’t felt most of the time in dental surgeries?
A. By showing facts with numbers.
B. By asking questions one by one.
C. By giving examples group by group.
D. By comparing results of patients.
9. The underlined word “evoke” (in Paragraph 4) probably means “B”.
A. reduce
B. cause
C. show
D. stop
10. How did the sound of drilling produce different results in the volunteers in the study?
A. It produced some worry in the volunteers in the low-fear group.
B. For the low-fear group, it activated the brain area dealing with learning, feelings and memory.
C. For the high-fear group, it caused more activities in the brain area relative to auditory processing.
D. It made people in the high-fear group think of their past uncomfortable memories.
11. What’s the purpose of the passage?
A. To show us different areas of fear in brains.
B. To introduce us a recent survey by a scientist.
C. To help us have less fear of a trip to the dentist.
D. To make it clear that the sound of drilling is unforgettable.

答案： C： 本文是一篇说明文。文章主要介绍并分析了牙科手术时病人对疼痛的感受情况，按照害怕程度高低分组，研究发现害怕程度高的病人过去不舒服的记忆导致了他们对牙科手术更加恐惧。
8.A 写作手法题。根据第二段最后一句可知，数据证明，做牙科手术时大部分时间是不痛的。故选 A项。
9.B 词义猜测题。根据第四段画线词所在句及其下一句可推知，evoke 的意思是“引起”。故选 B项。
10.D 细节理解题。根据倒数第二段可知，在高恐惧组，被激活的大脑区域是执行许多职责的区域，包括学习、情感，最重要的是记忆。这意味着，这些志愿者不仅听到了声音，而且还记住了它——他们将电钻的声音与过去电钻时产生的担忧联系起来，让高恐惧组的人回忆起他们过去的担忧。故选 D项。
11.C 写作意图题。文章主要分析了牙科手术时病人产生害怕情绪的原因，目的是帮助人们减少对牙科手术的恐惧。故选 C项。