Vocabulary
Directions: Scan the following passage and find the words which have roughly the same meanings as those given below. The number in the brackets after each word definition refers to the number of paragraph in which the target word is. 

     Most of us buy vitamins for one of three reasons. Either we believe that they are prophylactic, that is they will ward off advancing ill, or they are therapeutic and will deal with the ills we have already, or finally we may believe they are wonder drugs and will lift us into a state of super health. We are protected from some of these wild imaginings by the laws which control advertising but even without false promises we still believe that vitamins will “do us good”.
     Belief is a very potent state of mind and the power of the placebo pill is never underestimated in clinical trials used to test new drugs. A placebo is a harmless substance given to one group of patients in the trial and it is similar in taste and appearance to a new drug which is given to a second group of patients. Theoretically the drug should cure or relieve any symptoms and the placebo should have no effect. Often these trials produce surprising results and the placebo group recovers as well as the group taking the new drug.
     Vitamins B and C cannot be retained in the body, so if we take more than we need of these, they are soon excreted in the urine. Taking too much of the fat soluble vitamins can be dangerous and vitamins A and D should never be taken indiscriminately. Vitamin E has not been found to have any toxic effect in large doses, but neither do there seem to be any noticeable benefits. This is an unexplored area in vitamin research and the only known advantages of vitamin E are confined to specialized medical cases.