单选题 Dr Thomas Starzl, like all the pioneers of organ transplantation, had to learn to live with failure. When he performed the world's first liver transplant 25 years ago, the patient, a three-year-old boy, died on the operating table. The next four patients didn't live long enough to get out of the hospital. But more determined than discouraged, Starzl and his colleagues went back to their lab at the University of Colorado Medical School. They devised techniques to reduce the heavy bleeding during surgery, and they worked on better ways to prevent the recipient's immune system from rejecting the organ — an ever-present risk.
But the triumphs of the transplant surgeons have created yet another tragic problem: a severe shortage of donor organs. "As the results get better, more people go on the waiting lists and there's wider disparity between supply and need," says one doctor. The American Council on Transplantation estimated that on any given day 15000 Americans are waiting for organs. There is no shortage of actual organs; each year about 5000 healthy people die unexpectedly in the United States, usually in accidents. The problem is that fewer than 20 percent become donors.
This trend persists despite laws designed to encourage organ recycling. Under the federal Uniform Anatomical Gift Act, a person can authorize the use of his organs after death by signing a statement. Legally, the next of kin can veto these posthumous gifts, but surveys indicate that 70 to 80 percent of the public would not interfere with a family member's decision. The biggest roadblock,according to some experts,is that physicians don't ask for donations, either because they fear offending grieving survivors or because they still regard some transplant procedures as experimental.
When there aren't enough organs to go around, distributing the available ones becomes a matter of deciding who will live and who will die. Once donors and potential recipients have been matched for body size and blood type,the sickest patients customarily go to the top of the local waiting list. Beyond the seriousness of the patients' condition,doctors base their choice on such criteria as the length of time the patient has been waiting, how long it will take to obtain an organ and whether the transplant team can gear up in time.

单选题 Which of the following is true according to the text?
【正确答案】 D
【答案解析】细节题。本题为细节比对题。[A]项与第一段第三句话不符;[B]项与该段第四句话中的more determined than discouraged不符;[C]项与该段第二句中的the World's firs liver transplant不符;只有[D]项与该段第一句及第四句表达的意思一致。
单选题 One factor causing death on organ transplantation is______.
【正确答案】 A
【答案解析】分析推理题。第一段最后一句指出,Dr Starzl和同事们开发了新技术来减少手术中的大出血并用更好的方法来防止受体免疫系统对器官的排斥。由上下文及常识可知大出血肯定是使接受器官移植手术者死亡的一个原因,选[A]。其余三项都不对。
单选题 In the US,there is a long waiting list for organs because ______.
【正确答案】 B
【答案解析】细节题。答案信息对应于第二段最后一句:The problem is that fewer tban 20 percent become donors, 即器官不足的原因是只有20%的死者成为器官捐赠者,与[B]一致。
单选题 There would be many more organ donors if______.
【正确答案】 C
【答案解析】分析推理题。文章第三段最后一句引用专家的观点,指出最大的障碍是医生没有要求捐赠,反过来即可推知,专家们认为如果医生更多地要求捐赠,那么那些意外死亡的人可能就会捐赠出器官,从而使得可用器官增加,因此[C]对。
单选题 The best title for this passage might be "______".
【正确答案】
【答案解析】主旨题。文章论述的主要是美国器官移植的现状,它所面临的器官短缺问题及可能的解决办法,因此最能概括全文主旨的标题应当是包含了这两个方面的[D]项。