单选题 The good news made headlines nationwide: Deaths from several kinds of cancer have declined significantly in recent years. But the news has to be bittersweet for many cancer patients and their families. Every year, more than 500, 000 people in the United States still die of cancer. In fact, more than half of all patients diagnosed with cancer will die of their disease within a few years. And while its true survival is longer today than in the past, the quality of life for these patients is often greatly diminished. Cancer—and many of the treatments used to fight it—causes pain, nausea, fatigue, and anxiety that routinely go undertreated or untreated.
In the nation's single-minded focus on curing cancer, we have inadvertently devalued the critical need for palliative care, which focuses on alleviating physical and psychological symptoms over the course of the disease. Nothing would have a greater impact on the daily lives of cancer patients and their families than good symptom control and supportive therapy. Yet the National Cancer Institute (NCI), the federal government's leader in cancer research and training, spent less than one percent of its 1999 budget on any aspect of research or training in palliative care.
The nation needs to get serious about reducing needless suffering. NCI should commit to and fund research aimed at improving symptom control and palliative care. NCI also could designate "centers of excellence" among the cancer centers it recognizes. To get that designation, centers would deliver innovative, top-quality palliative care to all segments of the populations the centers serve; train professionals in medicine, nursing, psychology, social work, and other disciplines to provide palliative care; and conduct research.
Insurance coverage for palliative and hospice care also contributes to the problem by forcing people to choose between active treatment or hospice care. This "either/or" approach does not readily allow these two types of essential care to be integrated. The Medicare hospice benefit is designed specifically for people in the final stages of illness and allows enrollment only if patients are expected to survive six months or less. The benefit excludes patients from seeking both palliative care and potentially life-extending treatment.
That makes hospice enrollment an obvious deterrent for many patients. And hospices, which may have the most skilled practitioners and the most experience in administering palliative care, cannot offer their services to people who could really benefit but still are pursuing active treatment.
It is innately human to comfort and provide care to those suffering from cancer, particularly those close to death. Yet what seems self-evident at an individual, personal level has not guided policy at the level of institutions in this country. Death is inevitable, but severe suffering is not. To offer hope for a long life of the highest possible quality and to deliver the best quality cancer care from diagnosis to death, our public institutions need to move toward policies that value and promote palliative care.

单选题 Palliative care is concerned with improving patients'
A. survival rates.
B. quality of life.
C. lifespans.
D. options for health insurance providers.
【正确答案】 B
【答案解析】[解析] 细节题。根据关键词palliative care定位到第二段。第一句提到，国家专心致志地把精力集中于治疗癌症……姑息治疗主要是为了减轻患病过程中生理上和心理上的症状。由此可知，姑息治疗的主要目的是提高病人的生活质量，故B项正确。
单选题 According to the author, research on palliative care for cancer
A. is more important than research for cancer cures.
B. has been overlooked by researchers.
C. is virtually non-existent.
D. is regarded by researchers as a frivolous topic.
【正确答案】 B
【答案解析】[解析] 细节题。根据关键词research，palliative care定位到第二段。文中提到，我们无意间忽视了对姑息治疗的急切需求……国家癌症研究所1999年只花费了不到百分之一的预算用于姑息治疗的研究和培训。国家癌症研究所应该投入并资助旨在改进症状控制和姑息疗法的研究。由此推知B项正确。A项、D项(frivolous意为“不重要的”)在文中没有依据，C项与原文内容不符。
单选题 The main problem of insurance coverage for hospice care and active treatment is that
A. it does not allow patients to seek both.
B. it only covers patients whose life expectancy is less than six months.
C. it deprives patients of the right to choose between two proven treatment methods.
D. hospice care is only covered when it may extend a patient's life expectancy.
【正确答案】 A
【答案解析】[解析] 细节题。根据关键词insurance coverage, hospice care and active treatment定位到第四段。第一句提到，姑息治疗和晚期病人安养所治疗的保险险种迫使人们在积极治疗和晚期病人安养所治疗两者之间做出选择，这也是导致问题产生的部分原因。这种“二选一”的做法不允许两种必不可少的治疗结合起来。由此可知，A项正确。B项不是主要问题，C项、D项与原文第四段内容不符。
单选题 Hospices offer cancer patients
A. an alternative to palliative care.
B. comfort in their early stages of illness.
C. skilled and experienced palliative care.
D. an alternative to active treatment.
【正确答案】 C
【答案解析】[解析] 细节题。根据题干定位到第五段。第二句提到。虽然收容所可能拥有技术最高明的开业医生和进行姑息治疗最丰富的经验，但它不能为能够真正获益但仍在寻求积极治疗的人提供服务。由此可知，C项符合此意。A项、D项都与后半句内容正相反；B项与第四段第三句不符，晚期病人安养所的医疗保险金是专门为晚期病人而设的，而不是为早期病人设立的。
单选题 This text is mainly about
A. improving cancer research in the U.S..
B. reforming insurance coverage for cancer patients.
C. understanding different options for cancer treatment and care.
D. reducing the suffering of cancer patients.
【正确答案】 D
【答案解析】[解析] 主旨题。文章第一段指出现状：对于癌症治疗而引起的负面症状通常没有得到合理的治疗或者根本没有得到治疗。第二、三段指出国家要加强姑息治疗研究以减轻患病治疗过程中生理和心理上的症状的必要性，第四、五段介绍了晚期病人安养所治疗的保险计划：最后一段总结上文，再次强调要重视并且推动姑息治疗。由此可见，全文都围绕着如何推动姑息治疗、减少癌症病人痛苦这一中心。因此，D项正确。其他三项都是文中细节，不能概括全文。