SECTION I - READING COMPREHENSION.
Directions: The following questions are based on a number of reading passages. Each
passage is followed by a series of questions. Read each passage carefully, and then answer
the que
...
SECTION I - READING COMPREHENSION.
Directions: The following questions are based on a number of reading passages. Each
passage is followed by a series of questions. Read each passage carefully, and then answer
the questions based on it. You may reread the passage as often as you wish. When you have
finished answering the questions based on one passage, go right on to the next passage.
Choose the best answer based on the information given and implied.
Questions 1 – 4 refer to the following passage.
Passage 1 - Infectious Disease
An infectious disease is a clinically evident illness resulting from the presence of pathogenic
agents, such as viruses, bacteria, fungi, protozoa, multi-cellular parasites, and unusual proteins
known as prions. Infectious pathologies are also called communicable diseases or transmissible
diseases, due to their potential of transmission from one person or species to another by a
replicating agent (as opposed to a toxin).
Transmission of an infectious disease can occur in many different ways. Physical contact,
liquids, food, body fluids, contaminated objects, and airborne inhalation can all transmit infectingagents.
Transmissible diseases that occur through contact with an ill person, or objects touched by
them, are especially infective, and are sometimes referred to as contagious diseases.
Communicable diseases that require a more specialized route of infection, such as through
blood or needle transmission, or sexual transmission, are usually not regarded as contagious.
The term infectivity describes the ability of an organism to enter, survive and multiply in the
host, while the infectiousness of a disease indicates the comparative ease with which the
disease is transmitted. An infection however, is not synonymous with an infectious disease, as
an infection may not cause important clinical symptoms. 1
1. What can we infer from the first paragraph in this passage?
a. Sickness from a toxin can be easily transmitted from one person to another.
b. Sickness from an infectious disease can be easily transmitted from one person to another.
c. Few sicknesses are transmitted from one person to another.
d. Infectious diseases are easily treated.
2. What are two other names for infections’ pathologies?
a. Communicable diseases or transmissible diseases
b. Communicable diseases or terminal diseases
c. Transmissible diseases or preventable diseases
d. Communicative diseases or unstable diseases
3. What does infectivity describe?
a. The inability of an organism to multiply in the host
b. The inability of an organism to reproduce
c. The ability of an organism to enter, survive and multiply in the host
d. The ability of an organism to reproduce in the host
4. How do we know an infection is not synonymous with an infectious disease?
a. Because an infectious disease destroys infections with enough time.
b. Because an infection may not cause important clinical symptoms or impair host function.
c. We do not. The two are synonymous.
d. Because an infection is too fatal to be an infectious disease.
Questions 5 – 8 refer to the following passage.
Passage 2 - Viruses
A virus (from the Latin virus meaning toxin or poison) is a small infectious agent that can
replicate only inside the living cells of other organisms. Most viruses are too small to be seen
directly with a microscope. Viruses infect all typ
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