教甄◆英文科題庫下載題庫

You’re about to savor your first bite from a delicious candy apple when, just as your teeth are about to sink in, the fruit–candy 

combo slips from its stick and plummets to the ground. The clock is ticking. You quickly snatch the fallen morsel, well within five 

seconds—the acknowledged time limit for determining whether dropped food should end up in your mouth or in the trash. 31_____ 

What to do could also pivot on whether or not the most recent relevant health column you read said that you could get away with 

putting the dropped food in your mouth without a trip to the emergency room. A lot of research—and common sense, really—might 

indicate that any dropped food carries a risk of collecting bacteria. 32_____ 

 Food retrieved just a few seconds after being dropped is less likely to contain bacteria than if it is left for longer periods of time, 

researchers at Aston University in England recently reported. The Aston team also noted that the type of surface on which the food 

has been dropped has an effect, with bacteria least likely to transfer from carpeted surfaces. Bacteria is much more likely to linger if 

moist foods make contact for more than five seconds with wood laminate or tiled surfaces. 33_____ They found that the initial 

impact immediately transferred at least a small proportion of bacteria resident on a floor to just about any type of food. 34_____ 

“We believe that additional contact is being made between the moist food and the floor as it settles further onto the floor,” Hilton 

says. Dry foods dropped on the carpet experienced the slowest rate of bacterial migration. 

 35_____ Next time when you think it’s fine to eat food that has only had contact with the floor for five seconds or less, it’s 

better to think twice before eating anything that touches an unsavory surface—whether it’s your kitchen floor or your favorite diner. 

 

(A) So the only real questions might be how great the risk is and whether it’s worth taking. 

(B) Moist foods left longer than 30 seconds, however, contained up to 10 times more bacteria than food picked up after three 

seconds. 

(C) One possible conclusion: This is tacit confirmation of another piece of folk wisdom—men are less discerning when it comes to 

their food’s cleanliness. 

(D) The Aston findings give the dropped-food guideline more legitimacy than have other studies, which tend to consider the 

“five-second rule” unadulterated baloney. 

(E) The research began as a class project, but Aston says widespread interest in the results has encouraged him to prepare the work 

for submission to a peer-reviewed journal. 

(AB) In addition to the parameters of time and surface types, the researchers monitored the transfer of the common bacteria 

Escherichia coli and Staphylococcus aureus from a variety of indoor floor types to toast, pasta, biscuits and a sticky sweet 

when contact was made from three to 30 seconds. 

(AC) What happens next is generally a judgment call depending on several factors—what was dropped, where it was dropped and 

the victim’s level of hunger.