谈医学考博学员如何结合题源文章做好基础阶段的复习工作

全国医学统考英语考试是有一定的难度的，特别是阅读理解题型一共有6篇文章，而且医博英语不同于其他考博的英语试卷，其中涉及很多医学类专业知识。经过对历年真题的研究发现，医博阅读理解有80-90%的文章来源于杂志New Scientist和The Journal of the American Medical Association，JAMA。其中New Scientist是英国发行的世界顶级科技杂志，也是全国医学博士英语统考阅读理解的重要题源。

因此，考生可以多多阅读New Scientist的文章，并精读文章，梳理文章中出现的单词和长难句，从而为后续做题阶段打下良好的基础。下面笔者结合New Scientist中的一篇文章，来谈谈词汇积累和长难句学习的方法和思路。

A common form of weight-loss surgery may cut the risk of colorectal cancer by altering levels of molecules called bile acids in the blood and small intestine. The findings could lead to new treatments for bowel cancer.

Gastric bypass surgery involves stapling the stomach to form a small upper pouch and a larger lower pouch. The small intestine is then connected to the upper pouch so food and digestive juices bypass most of the stomach and the start of the small intestine. After having the surgery, people typically feel full sooner and lose weight.

Prior studies have also linked the procedure to a reduced risk of colorectal cancer, but it was unclear why. To find out, Rebecca Kesselring at the University of Freiburg in Germany and her colleagues fed mice a high-fat diet until they gained around 50 per cent of their initial body weight, on average. They then gave a third of the mice gastric bypass surgery while the rest underwent sham surgery that didn’t rearrange their digestive organs.

Aiming to isolate the effect of having gastric bypass surgery from that of losing weight, the team put the gastric bypass group and half of the remaining mice on a diet that caused them to lose about a fifth of their weight, on average, over six weeks.

The researchers then implanted colorectal cancer cells into the mice’s colons. After another six weeks, they found that colon tumours in the gastric bypass group were two-thirds smaller than those of either the mice that had kept gaining weight or the mice that had lost weight through diet alone.

What’s more, tumours had spread to the liver in only one mouse out of 20 in the gastric bypass group, while this occurred in most animals in the sham groups.

“As both sham groups had similar tumour levels but different weights, weight loss itself didn’t account for the reduced cancer risk – there was something else about bypass surgery,” says Kesselring.

The team wondered if changes in bile acids, a mix of molecules that digest fats, might be responsible. These are usually made by the liver and pass through the gall bladder, stomach and small intestine before returning to the liver via the blood.

“With bypass surgery, bile acids are introduced later into the small intestine,” says Kesselring. This means they may encounter a different mix of gut bacteria, which chemically alter the molecules.

The mice that underwent gastric bypass surgery had reduced levels of some bile acids called primary bile acids in their colons and blood compared with those in the sham groups.

To test whether bile acid changes really did alter cancer risk, the team put another group of mice through the same experiment – but instead of gastric bypass surgery, these mice had an operation that simply diverted their bile acids to a later part of their small intestine without altering the stomach.

Crucially, the team found that this lowered levels of primary bile acids in the blood and reduced the size and spread of colorectal tumours in these mice as effectively as gastric bypass surgery. This was supported by another experiment where the team found that primary bile acids boost the growth of colorectal cancer cells in a lab dish.

The findings suggest that targeting primary bile acids could help treat cancer. “We could maybe figure out some oral drug that reduces these bile acids, that we could give to people with cancer, to simulate some of these beneficial effects of [gastric bypass] surgery,” says Vance Albaugh at Louisiana State University.

通过阅读文章，可以尝试分类筛选出重点词汇如下：

疾病与手术相关：colorectal（结直肠的），gastric bypass surgery（胃旁路手术），stapling（用订书钉缝合），pouch（囊；小袋），digestive（消化的），digestive juices（消化液）

研究过程相关：sham（假的；模拟的），implant（植入），tumour（肿瘤），liver（肝脏）

分子与物质相关：bile acids（胆汁酸），primary bile acids（初级胆汁酸），molecule（分子）

其他：alter（改变），isolated（隔离的；单独的），boost（促进；增强）

建议考生可以按照下述思路来进行英语词汇的积累工作：

第一，制定计划。根据筛选出的单词，制定每天的学习计划，比如每天学习10 - 15个单词，通过多次重复记忆加深印象。

第二，结合语境。将单词放入文章句子中理解记忆，这样不仅能记住单词的意思，还能了解其用法。例如学习implant时，结合The researchers then implanted colorectal cancer cells into the mice’s colons.这句话，理解它在医学研究场景中的含义。对于一些动词，如“implant（植入）”“staple（用订书钉缝合）”“divert（转移）”等，结合文章中的动作描述来记忆。“The researchers then implanted colorectal cancer cells into the mice’s colons.”这句话清晰地展示了“implant”的用法和含义，比单纯背单词释义更有效。

第三，制作卡片：把单词写在卡片的一面，释义和例句写在另一面。比如，写primary bile acids在卡片正面，背面附上释义“初级胆汁酸”文章中相关例句“The mice that underwent gastric bypass surgery had reduced levels of some bile acids called primary bile acids in their colons and blood compared with those in the sham groups.”。随时拿出卡片进行复习，利用碎片化时间加强记忆，通过不断重复加深对单词的印象。

再进一步分析文章中出现的长难句结构，示例如下：

To test whether bile acid changes really did alter cancer risk, the team put another group of mice through the same experiment – but instead of gastric bypass surgery, these mice had an operation that simply diverted their bile acids to a later part of their small intestine without altering the stomach.

【结构分析】这是一个复合句。“To test whether bile acid changes really did alter cancer risk”是目的状语，其中“whether bile acid changes really did alter cancer risk”是宾语从句；“the team put another group of mice through the same experiment”是主句；“but instead of gastric bypass surgery, these mice had an operation that simply diverted their bile acids to a later part of their small intestine without altering the stomach”是并列句，其中“that simply diverted their bile acids to a later part of their small intestine without altering the stomach”是定语从句修饰“operation”。

【参考译文】为了测试胆汁酸的变化是否真的会改变癌症风险，研究小组对另一组小鼠进行了相同的实验——但这些小鼠没有进行胃旁路手术，而是进行了一项手术，该手术只是将它们的胆汁酸引流到小肠的较后部分，而不改变胃部。

建议考生可以按照下述思路来进行长难句学习：

第一，句子结构分析。学习长难句时，先找出句子的主干，即主语、谓语和宾语，再分析其他修饰成分，如定语从句、状语从句等。可以通过画句子结构图的方式，更直观地理解句子各部分之间的关系。

第二，翻译练习：将长难句翻译成中文，然后再把中文翻译回英文，与原句进行对比，找出自己在理解和表达上的不足，逐步提高翻译和语言运用能力。

第三，多读多练：多阅读包含长难句的医学英语文章，积累分析长难句的经验，提高阅读理解能力。在阅读过程中，尝试自己分析句子结构，然后再参考解析进行核对。

复习备考推荐资料:《华慧2026年医学统考考博英语阅读理解专项训练》