高分班入门测试.docVIP

READING TEST QUESTIONS1-17 You are advised to spend about 20 minutes on Questions1-17 which refer to reading passage 1 below. READING PASSAGE1 Traditional Vietnamese Medical Theory The beliefs of Vietnamese folk medicine associate illness with the absence of any of the three souls which maintain life, intelligence, and the senses, or of the nine spirits which collectively sustain the living body. A number of rituals performed at childbirth, which are aimed at protecting the mother and the infant from medical and magical dangers, derive from these beliefs, but they play a relatively limited role in medical behaviour generally. Conversely, Chinese medicine plays a major role in the maintenance and restoration of health and is observed by ethnic Vietnamese and by Vietnamese-Chinese. Principles from Chinese medicine provide the scripting for the management of birth for both groups, and more generally, establish guidelines whereby good health may be maintained. According to Sino-Vietnamese medical theory, the body has two vital and opposite life forces which capture the essence of yin (breath) and yang (blood) in accordance with the ‘five evolutive phases’ (wood, fire, earth, metal and water). The proper circulation and balance of the yin and yang ensure the healthy circulation of blood and thus good health. Illness, physical and mental, can be identified by the imbalance or excess of yin over yang or yang over yin. Foods and medicine, also classified according to their reputed intrinsic nature as yin (cold) and yang (hot), may be taken therapeutically to correct the imbalance resulting from ill health, or to correct imbalance due to the overindulgence in a food manifestly excessively ‘hot’ or ‘cold’, or due to age or changed physiological status (for example, pregnancy). Foodstuffs may also be identified as tonic or antitonic, toxic or poison, or as having wind. A further small group of foods are ascribed magical properties. Other foods may be classified as n