The word “maladies” in Paragraph 2 means ______.A、tunes
B、illnesses
C、serious problems
D、advanced ages
【正确答案】：B
【题目解析】：事实细节题。定位于第二段as we live longer, and as many infectious and epidemic diseases have ceased to be major causes of death, so we become prone to maladies that express themselves at ages once rarely attained.这句话的前半句是指“许多传染的流行病已经不再是主要的死亡原因”，可见后半句说的是新的疾病，而且我们更易受到新的疾病的影响。所以 maladies是疾病的意思，B选项是正确的。