Đề thi thử tốt nghiệp THPT 2027 môn Tiếng Anh — Đề ôn luyện số 15

For centuries, doctors have known that patients sometimes feel better after receiving a treatment that contains no active ingredient at all, such as a sugar pill or an injection of salt water. This puzzling result, (1) _______, has long been treated as a nuisance in medical research: a new drug must be shown to work better than a placebo, not merely better than nothing. Many promising medicines have failed precisely because they could not beat it.

In recent decades, however, scientists have begun to study the placebo effect for its own sake. (2) _______. When patients believe they are being treated, their brains may release natural painkillers, and their anxiety often falls, which in turn can ease symptoms such as pain and nausea. (3) _______ the pill itself does nothing, the expectation surrounding it clearly does.

More surprisingly still, the effect does not always depend on deception. In several studies, patients who were openly told that they were taking a placebo still reported feeling better than those who received no treatment at all. (4) _______. Researchers suspect that the ritual of treatment, such as visiting a doctor, being listened to and taking a pill at regular times, carries a meaning of its own.

None of this means that a placebo can cure a serious disease; it cannot shrink a tumour or kill bacteria. Its effects are strongest for symptoms that depend partly on how we feel, such as pain or tiredness. Still, the research suggests that doctors would do well (5) _______.