Civil Service Exam Reviewer · Reading Comprehension · hard

The Price of Careless Cures

Antibiotics are among the great achievements of modern medicine, but every use of them carries a hidden cost. When a population of bacteria is exposed to an antibiotic, most of the bacteria die, but a few may survive because of chance genetic differences. Those survivors multiply, and over time the population becomes dominated by strains the drug can no longer kill. This is natural selection operating at high speed, and it is accelerated by careless use. Taking antibiotics for a cold or the flu, illnesses caused by viruses that antibiotics do not affect, exposes the body's bacteria to the drug without any benefit. Large-scale use of antibiotics in livestock to speed their growth adds to the pressure. The result is a growing list of infections that are difficult or impossible to treat. Because resistant bacteria cross borders as easily as travelers do, no country can solve the problem alone. Health authorities therefore urge doctors to prescribe more carefully and patients to resist the urge to demand antibiotics for every illness; the medicine that is not taken today may be the medicine that still works tomorrow.

The final sentence means that

  1. patients should stockpile antibiotics for later
  2. antibiotics expire quickly once opened
  3. using antibiotics wisely now helps keep them effective in the future
  4. new antibiotics will always replace old ones

Answer

C. using antibiotics wisely now helps keep them effective in the future

Solution

Avoiding unnecessary use slows resistance, so the drug "still works tomorrow."

More Reading Comprehension questions

  1. Why does the passage say that no country can solve the problem alone?
  2. The phrase "natural selection operating at high speed" refers to
  3. Taking antibiotics for the flu is criticized in the passage because
  4. According to the passage, antibiotic resistance develops because
  5. It can be inferred that limits on visitors are usually imposed late because
  6. The contrast between the resort owner and the fishing family illustrates that
  7. The example of the careless divers shows that
  8. Why is carrying capacity difficult to apply, according to the passage?
  9. Boracay is mentioned in the passage mainly to
  10. As used in the passage, "glosses over" most nearly means

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