复合题

Section B

Directions: There are 3 passages in this section. Each passage is followed by some questions or unfinished statements. For each of them there are four choices marked A, B, C and D. You should decide on the best choice and put it in the Answer Sheet.

Passage One

Women in Australia earn about 82 cents for every man’s dollar. If you look at the highest paid male and female doctors in the country, the pay gap is even more pronounced.

However, an interesting new study has found that hospital patients treated by a female doctor had better health outcomes than those treated by a male doctor. “There is evidence that men and women may practice medicine differently,” said the paper’s authors from Harvard Medical School (female physicians in the U.S. earn around 8 per cent less than male counterparts).

Previous studies had found female doctors were more likely to provide preventive care, communicate well with patients, offering more psychosocial counselling and perform as well, if not better, on standard examinations.

Researchers had not looked at whether these differences in care extended to patient outcomes, until now. The researchers evaluated the records of more than 1.5 million hospitalisations in the United States over a three-year period, looking specifically at whether patients died within 30 days of the admission date and whether patients were readmitted within 30 days of the discharge date.

They found, with patients treated by a female doctor, a 4 per cent lower mortality rate and 5 percent reduction in readmission rates “across all medical conditions we examined”. The papers authors added: “Assuming that the association between sex and mortality is causal (具有因果关系的), we estimate that approximately 32,000 fewer patients would die if male physicians could achieve the same outcomes as female physicians every year.”

Despite the findings, the authors do not suggest seeking care only from female physicians. Apart from the fact that only about 43 per cent of GPs and one-third (34 per cent) of specialists in Australia are women, they say the study’s purpose is to begin to understand different patterns of practice that are driving different health outcomes.

“Understanding exactly why these differences in care quality and practice patterns exist may provide valuable insights into improving quality of care for all patients, regardless of who provides their care,” the authors said. 

单选题 What do we learn about doctors in Australia?
【正确答案】 B
【答案解析】根据文章第一句“Women in Australia earn about 82 cents for every man’s dollar.”在澳大利亚， 男医生每收入1美元， 女医生收入82美分。 由此可知， 女医生挣得比男医生少。
单选题 Previous studies found that female doctors _______.
【正确答案】 D
【答案解析】根据第三段提到的“Previous studies had found female doctors were more likely to provide preventive care,communicate well with patients, offering more psychosocial counselling and perform as well, if not better, on standard examinations.”此前的研究发现， 女医生更有可能提供预防性护理， 与患者沟通良好， 提供更多的心理社会咨询， 在标准体检中表现得更好， 甚至更好。 由此可知， 女医生在心理支持方面表现更好。
单选题 The researchers from Harvard Medical School found _______.
【正确答案】 D
【答案解析】定位到第五段“They found, with patients treated by a female doctor, a 4 per cent lower mortality rate and 5 percent reduction in readmission rates “across all medical conditions we examined”.”他们发现， 在接受女性医生治疗的患者中， “在我们检查的所有医疗条件下”， 死亡率降低了4%， 再入院率降低了5%。 由此可知， 女医生治疗的病人死亡率较低。
单选题 The word discharge (Last line, Para. 4) most probably means _______.
【正确答案】 D
【答案解析】定位到“The researchers evaluated the records of more than 1.5 million hospitalisations in the United States over a three-year period, looking specifically at whether patients died within 30 days of the admission date and whether patients were readmitted within 30 days of the discharge date.”研究人员评估了美国逾150万所医院在三年时间里的记录， 特别关注患者是否在入院后30天内死亡， 以及患者是否在出院后30天内再次入院。readmit再次入院， 可推断discharge为痊愈后出院。
单选题 readmit再次入院， 可推断discharge为痊愈后出院。The study is intended to _________.
【正确答案】 B
【答案解析】根据文章最后一段“they say the study’s purpose is to begin to understand different patterns of practice that are driving different health outcomes”， 他们说， 这项研究的目的是开始了解不同的实践模式， 这些模式导致了不同的健康结果。 由此可知， 这项调查的主要目的是为了帮助提高医疗质量。