LANG4001-3 JUNE 2019 EXAM

Student ID number: ____________________ NAME: _____________________________________

ULiège Faculty of Medicine – 1st Year English Exam – Q2

Students in Biomedical Sciences
LENGTH: 2.5 hours

This examination is mostly machine marked. All answers to Q.-type questions must be included
on your red Formulom sheet before the end of the examination time.

➢ Use only black or blue pens. Make sure the boxes are completely filled with ink or you will not
receive credit for the answer. (Do not put any crosses or tick marks on your answer sheet.)

➢ Make sure you read the questions and answer choices very carefully and remember that the
correct answer refers to what is said in the text/video only.

➢ All answers appear on the pages below; there are NO “implicit” answers (6, 7 …).

➢ Do not guess unless you can eliminate one or more possibilities: wrong answers are penalized
(-1/3 for MCQ and -1/2 for T/F)

➢ Put your name and Student ID or “matricule” on all sheets as required.

PART 1: LISTENING COMPREHENSION1

Q1) Warfarin is now used to help prevent humans from bleeding to death from stroke or
heart attack.
TRUE (1) / OR FALSE/NOT MENTIONED (2)

Q2) Vets soon identified the culprit: a crop in the cattle feed called sweet clover.
Which noun could replace “culprit” in the example above?
1. reduction
2. solution
3. problem
4. evidence

Q3) The sweet clover was apparently responsible for cows’ deaths because:
1. it caused them to become moody, then very sick over time.
2. if ingested in a moldy state, it caused illness.
3. it was left out of their usual food, causing deficiencies.
4. it was too expensive to feed them to prevent the bleeding.

1
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OnzF0oJkYe0
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Q4) Ed Carlson went to the University of Wisconsin in the hopes that:

1. professors like Karl Link would be able to cure his cows.
2. his own blood would be enabled to clot properly again.
3. Karl Link’s team would be able to revive his dead cow.
4. they would confirm his discovery of the chemical responsible for the deaths.

Q5) Choose the correct group of words to fill in the following blanks: After (i)____________
years of research, they found it: a (ii)________________ called dicoumarol which
(iii)_______________ blood clotting.
1. (i) several – (ii) component – (iii) can habituate
2. (i) seven – (ii) compound – (iii) inhibited
3. (i) several – (ii) compound – (iii) inhabited
4. (i) seven – (ii) compared – (iii) inhabited

Q6) Although the first form of dicoumarol was fatal to rats, it was less toxic to other small
mammals.
TRUE (1) / OR FALSE/NOT MENTIONED (2)

Q7) Initially, doctors were hesitant to prescribe warfarin to humans because, despite positive
research results on humans, the drug was known to be a very effective rat poison.
TRUE (1) / OR FALSE/NOT MENTIONED (2)

Q8) Which of the following is NOT mentioned in relation to the drug Coumadin?
1. It is just a commercial name for warfarin.
2. It was approved in 1954 for clinical use in humans.
3. President Eisenhower took it as treatment.
4. It was the only anticoagulant available from 1955 until 2005.

Q9) Choose the correct group of words to fill in the following blanks:
… but warfarin is still used to (i) _________________ millions of people. In fact, it
remains on the World Health Organization’s list of essential (ii) _____________...
1. treating – missions
2. treat – missions
3. treat – medicines
4. treated – medicine

Q10) What is the best summary of the final message of this video?
1. Toxicity of anticoagulants varies greatly between humans, rats and cows.
2. Biochemists must determine how and when farmers use drugs on animals.
3. Farmers and scientists need to meet more often to cure diseases.
4. Crucial drugs sometimes result from unplanned discoveries in nature.

PART 2: READING COMPREHENSION

 LANG4001-3 JUNE 2019 EXAM

Antibiotics gave us routine surgery. Growing resistance could change everything 2

Thomas Levenson, Boston Globe, January 26, 2018

§1. Over the last century or so, medicine in general and surgery in particular has been transformed,
to the point where we all, medical professionals and the rest of us, share a basic assumption: When
we are ill or in need of repair — a fractured hip, a misbehaving appendix, a distressed heart in need
of a pacemaker, the range of ills and accidents that humans encounter — doctors, and specifically
surgeons, can do something about it. Hidden within that assumption is the belief that the ordinary
risks of surgery are slight enough to make a trip under the knife safe, and that infections associated
with surgery are under control.

Q11) Which sentence best summarizes this first paragraph?

1. We should consider getting other non-invasive treatments before undergoing
surgery.
2. Most of us overestimate the risks of ordinary surgery.
3. Thanks to antibiotics, infections linked to surgery have practically disappeared.
4. When considering getting operated on, we don't think of
infections as a serious threat.

§2. That’s where the antibiotics come in. There are almost 50 million surgeries performed each
year in the United States. As of 2011, there were an estimated 157,500 surgical site infections.
Pre-operative antibiotics are a key to keeping those numbers — and the harm infections can do — in
check. A recent review reported that surgical infection for the 10 most common procedures drops
from over 11 percent for patients who do not receive pre-operative antibiotics to just 4.2 percent
with the drugs.

Q12) What does the underlined phrase "keep those numbers in check" mean?
1. Making sure the rates of surgical site infections do not rise
above a given threshold
2. Compiling a database of the rates of surgical site infections
3. Comparing the rates of infections related to the surgery and to
pre-operative issues
4. Making sure the rates of surgical infections are not made public

§3. There is only one problem: We may not be able count on such gifts for much longer. --LW1--
we’ve been able to rely on the certainty that the infections once associated with surgery are largely
under control, doctors confidently perform the now-routine procedures — from Caesarean sections
to prostate biopsies to appendectomies and more — that permit us to live and age with greater
security than ever before. --LW2-- as more and more bacteria show resistance to antibiotics, the risks
change — to the point that doctors and patients alike may soon face agonizing choices about
whether or when to take a chance on many of the surgeries we now accept as a matter of course.

Q13) Which of the following best replaces LW1?

1. Due to

2
Levenson, Thomas. "Antibiotics gave us routine surgery. Growing resistance could change
everything." The Boston Globe. January 26, 2018. Retrieved and adapted from
https://www.bostonglobe.com/ideas/2017/12/02/antibiotics-gave-routine-surgery-growing-
resistance-could-change-everything/QksE7n3SWTxnzt4CAQAxoJ/story.html
 LANG4001-3 JUNE 2019 EXAM

2. Because
3. Indeed
4. Although

Q14) Which of the following best replaces LW2?

1. Although
2. However,
3. Similarly,
4. As a result,

§4. As standard practice, joint-replacement surgery, --LW3--, begins with a dose of a broad-spectrum
antibiotic. A team of researchers surveyed the ten most common surgeries and cancer
chemotherapies to analyze what would happen --LW4-- antibiotic resistance grows — changing the
risk benefit calculation for everything from appendectomies to pacemaker implants. Modeling a 30
percent drop in the effectiveness of pre-operative antibiotics, the researchers found that another
120,000 Americans would suffer surgical site or chemotherapy-associated infections, and at least
6,000 of those patients would die.

Q15) Which of the following best replaces LW3?

1. eventually
2. consequently
3. for instance
4. on the one hand

Q16) Which of the following best replaces LW4?

1. whereas
2. during
3. as soon as
4. as

§5. Surgery isn’t in that predicament yet. --LW5-- “some of the organisms we’ve heard about are
really frightening,” Maguire says, “we are just by the skin of our teeth staying ahead” of them. But
that will change if more antibiotics become less effective in preventing surgical complications. “I
remember how terrifying it was to be in a situation where you just had nothing to offer,” he says.

Q17) Which of the following best replaces LW5?

1. Even though
2. Nevertheless
3. Like
4. Compared to

Q18) What does the underlined phrase "we are staying ahead of them" mean?
1. Maguire's team of scientists have been the best at manufacturing
effective antibiotics.
2. There will probably be more and more frequent fatal infections in the
future.
3. We are able to have a clear idea of which bacteria are pathogenic.
 LANG4001-3 JUNE 2019 EXAM

4. We have managed to come up with new antibiotics to fight emerging

bacterial pathogens.

§6. As long as resistance to more drugs spreads across more microbes, ordinary interventions will
become more dangerous, some perhaps greatly so. Patients will have to make harder and harder
choices, whether to live with the pain of a ruined hip or to take a chance on an increasingly fraught
surgery. And when there is no choice, we will have to confront odds that have shifted against us. For
instance, Maguire says that, --LW6-- someone contemplating a joint replacement can choose to forgo
the risk, if they need a new heart valve or a ventricular assist device, “that’s potentially life and
death.” In such circumstances, “if your life depending on having the device, even with great risk
you’d do it. But more would die.”

Q19) Which of the following best replaces LW6?

1. despite
2. while
3. when
4. as

Q20) Most people who need a hip replacement had better find therapy other than surgery
given the risk of infection.
1. TRUE
2. FALSE/NOT MENTIONED

§9. A first essential step, Dr. Sumanth Gandra says, is to deploy available drugs carefully, and above
all, not misuse them. “The big message is that antibiotics are finite resources.” That means, he says,
“we have to use more caution” as we spend such treasure.

Q21) Which sentence best summarizes Gandra's message?

1. We should use antibiotics only when there is no other alternative because they
are not very effective anymore.
2. We should use antibiotics only when necessary and effective because we are
going to run out of them one day.
3. We should use antibiotics only for specific infections because they are dangerous
compounds.
4. Only the smallest effective dose of antibiotics should be used because they have a
negative effect on the environment.

§10. The misuse of antibiotics ranges from applications in agriculture to the prescription of
antibiotics for viral diseases on which they have no effect. Each time antibiotics appear in settings
where they don’t actually knock out an infection, more microbes learn how to resist their effects,
and the risk to humans grows. To combat this, researchers and practitioners have come up with the
concept of antibiotic stewardship. In practice this includes measures like curtailing all non-essential
uses of antibiotics (like fattening a chicken); making changes in hospital practice to make sure that
physicians are prescribing the right drug for a given infection; agreeing that the so called “drugs of
last resort” for multi-drug resistant infections are used only when absolutely necessary; and ensuring
that hospitals do everything they can to prevent infections from occurring in the first place.

Q22) The first measure taken to reduce the misuse of antibiotics is to provide society with
guidelines on when to use antibiotics.
1. TRUE
2. FALSE/NOT MENTIONED
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§11. More and better science will help too. New drugs and new biomedical approaches could
--GAP1-- infections that are currently on a path towards total resistance. There are signs of progress.
As of March, 39 new antibiotics were undergoing clinical trials in the United States, with 11 in phase
three, the closest to approval. But that number is --GAP2--. Most of those new compounds were
variations on existing drugs. Many of those in trials will not survive that process. No more than a
third show promise of being effective against highly resistant pathogens. More adventurous
approaches — using viruses that infect bacteria to combat infections, for example, or developing
new vaccines for specific microbial pathogens — are being studied, as are immunological approaches
seeking to stimulate a patient’s own defense system to crush infections on its own.

Q23) What word best fills GAP1?

1. resist
2. tackle
3. take part in
4. contend for

Q24) What word best fills GAP2?

1. deceptive
2. disappointing
3. inefficient
4. declining

§12. If antibiotic resistance keeps intensifying, and if the needed research doesn’t happen, then at
least some of the medical care that we now assume will be available to us won’t be. Our joints may
fail, and the choice may be between pain and increasingly acute risk of infection. Our hearts may
break, and the operations that could fix them may become more and more of a gamble. A
complicated childbirth could pose ever more impossible collisions between the needs of mother and
infant. A bad cut, a scraped knee, an ankle broken on a slide into second base — for three-quarters of
a century these have been painful, annoying, a hassle. And nothing more. In the worst cases, that
could change too.

Q25) Which best completes the following sentence in order to summarize paragraph 12? If
antibiotics are not as effective as they used to be, …
1. some invasive procedures will not be possible to perform anymore.
2. surgery will have to happen in sterilized conditions only.
3. more surgical procedures will have to be performed in compensation for the lack
of effective antibiotic treatment.
4. surgery will become a risky therapeutic option.

Scan paragraphs §10-12 and find the terms corresponding to the following definitions.
This is an open question: you should write your answers here.
[ADJECTIVE] very serious or severe: _______________________________ acute $12

[VERB] to vary between two particular amounts: _______________________________ to range $10

[VERB] to stop something from happening: ____________________________ to prevent $10

[NOUN] the process of testing the quality or performance of something: ______________________

trial $11
 LANG4001-3 JUNE 2019 EXAM

[VERB] to repair: _______________________________ to fix $12

PART 3: WRITTEN EXPRESSION

Define and explain (i.e., provide an example for) 4 of the following 7 terms in your own words. Do
not write more than 3 sentences for each: __/10

1) Pathologist:

2) Toxic agent:

3) Antidepressant:

4) Adverse effects:

5) Gene editing:

6) Analgesic:

7) Microbiome:
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Read the following Pew Reviews3 on using alternative medicine and write a short summary.
Focus on relevant information, divide your summary into paragraphs when necessary and
include linking words. Your summary should be between 150 and 200 words.
___/15

3
https://www.pewinternet.org/2017/02/02/vast-majority-of-americans-say-benefits-of-
childhood-vaccines-outweigh-risks/ps_2017-02-02_vaccines_2-08/
 LANG4001-3 JUNE 2019 EXAM

PART 4: VOCABULARY FROM THE COURSE BOOK

Q26) Which of the verbs below can be found as a synonym for “to seek out”?
1. To twist
2. To experiment
3. To blend
4. To search for

Q27) In toxicology, “xenobiotic” refers to:

1. A chemical substance found within an organism that is not naturally produced or expected to
be present within the organism.
2. the exposure to one chemical, which results in the other chemical producing an effect
greater than if given alone.
3. a combination of two or more chemicals, which is the sum of the expected individual
responses.
4. None of the above.

Q28) Fill in the gap with the appropriate word:

Despite the _______ effects of St. John’s Wort being well known in the pharmaceutical
community, information about them from points of sale are poor and consumers should be
aware of them before buying some.
1. adverse
2. side
3. intended
4. folk

Q29) Which can be found as a synonym for “harmful”?

1. deadly
2. lethal
3. mortal
4. All of the above

Q30) Which of the following verbs means “to aggregate”?

1. to submit
2. to collect
3. to track
 LANG4001-3 JUNE 2019 EXAM

4. to yield

Q31) Choose the correct preposition.

Bacteria and fungi help break ________ organic matter.
1. on
2. up
3. down
4. in

Q32) The word “morbidity” refers to:

1. the death rate, which reflects the number of deaths per unit of population in any specific
region, age group, disease, or other classification.
2. death, its grimmer or uglier aspect.
3. the incidence or prevalence of a disease or of all diseases.
4. None of the above.

Q33) Which refers to the word “reliability”?

1. precision, correctness
2. statistics or items of information
3. suggests consistent dependability of results
4. general tendency

Q34) Which of the adverbs below means “nearly”?

1. actually
2. virtually
3. terminally
4. eventually

Q35) Which of the following cannot be found as a synonym for “to solve”?
1. To understand
2. To work out
3. To figure out
4. None of the above.

Q36) Which of the following means “producing a decided, decisive or desired effect”?
1. sprinkled
2. widened
3. effective
4. benevolent

Q37) Fill in the gap: The committee had to ___________ very high to define the standards of
safety and efficacy before launching their new medicine.
1. prospect
2. require
3. raise the bar
4. draw the line
 LANG4001-3 JUNE 2019 EXAM

Q38) Which of the nouns below can be found as a synonym for “supervision”?
1. drop out
2. oversight
3. endorsement
4. recurrence

Q39) Which of the following can be found as a synonym for the underlined word:
Harry was on a diet and had managed to resist the temptation of chocolate for a month.
1. ferry
2. withstand
3. impair
4. threaten

Q40) What does “superbug” mean?

1. A microbial manipulation
2. A drug that causes abortion
3. A type of antibiotic drug
4. A bacterium resistant to antibiotics

PART 5: GRAMMAR

Q41) Some side effects __________ among patients who __________ this medication for
several months.
1. were observed / were taken
2. were observed / took
3. observed / were taken
4. observed / took

Q42) Before the experiment, we should warn students that these two products
___________________ together. That should prevent possible problems.
1. must not have used
2. must not been used
3. must not be use
4. must not be used

Q43) Which structure is correct?

1. This therapy is said to be extremely efficient.
2. This therapy is said being extremely efficient.
3. This therapy has said to been extremely efficient.
4. This therapy is saying to be extremely efficient.

Q44) Which structure is NOT a correct passive voice?

1. We were given the wrong information.
2. He will be asked not to work on this project.
3. It is expecting that the price of the drug will decrease.
4. This project has been funded by the government.

Q45) Which proposition is the correct passive form of the following sentence?
Our company had already received the patent.
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1. The patent was already received by our company.

2. The patent had already received by our company.
3. The patent has already been receiving by our company.
4. The patent had already been received by our company.

Q46) We __________ cure this disease, it is impossible.

1. might not 2. must not 3. cannot 4. should not

Q47) They _______________ more cautious during the experiment yesterday. The
accident was easily preventable.
1. must be 2. may have been 3. should have been 4.have to be

Q48) If you had asked for advice, I _________ have told you how to do it.
1. won’t 2. can 3. will 4. would

Q49) Which proposition does NOT express a possibility?

1. Some of these medicinal plants may have side effects.
2. The experiment did not work. We must have made a mistake.
3. Taking more than the prescribed dose might be dangerous.
4. Before our budget was cut down, we could afford expensive material.

Q50) Which proposition expresses the same idea as the following sentence?
It is not necessary to hand in your report today.
1. You don’t have to hand in your report today.
2. You mustn’t hand in your report today.
3. You shouldn’t have handed in your report today.
4. You didn’t need to hand in your report today.