单选题 The Supreme Court"s decisions on physician-assisted suicide carry important implications for how medicine seeks to relieve dying patients of pain and suffering. Although it ruled that there is no constitutional right to physician-assisted suicide, the Court in effect supported the medical principle of "double effect", a centuries-old moral principle holding that an action having two effects—a good one that is intended and a harmful one that is foreseen—is permissible if the actor intends only the good effect.
Doctors have used that principle in recent years to justify using high doses of morphine to control terminally ill patients" pain, even though increasing dosages will eventually kill the patient. Nancy Dubler, director of Montefiore Medical Center, contends that the principle will shield doctors who "until now have very, very strongly insisted that they could not give patients sufficient mediation to control their pain if that might hasten death." George Annas, chair of the health law department at Boston University, maintains that, as long as a doctor prescribes a drug for a legitimate medical purpose, the doctor has done nothing illegal even if the patient uses the drug to hasten death. "It"s like surgery," he says. "We don"t call those deaths homicides because the doctors didn"t intend to kill their patients, although they risked their death. If you"re a physician, you can risk your patient"s suicide as long as you don"t intend their suicide." On another level, many in the medical community acknowledge that the assisted-suicide debate has been fueled in part by the despair of patients for whom modem medicine has prolonged the physical agony of dying.
Just three weeks before the Court"s ruling on physician-assisted suicide, the National Academy of Science (NAS) released a two-volume report, Approaching Death: Improving Care at the End of Life. It identifies the under treatment of pain and the aggressive use of "ineffectual and forced medical procedures that may prolong and even dishonor the period of dying" as the twin problems of end-of-life care.
The profession is taking steps to require young doctors to train in hospices, to test knowledge of aggressive pain management therapies, to develop a Medicare billing code for hospital-based care, and to develop new standards for assessing and treating pain at the end of life. Annas says lawyers can play a key role in insisting that these well-meaning medical initiatives translate into better care. "Large numbers of physicians seem unconcerned with the pain their patients are needlessly and predictably suffering," to the extent that it constitutes "systematic patient abuse". He says medical licensing boards "must make it clear.., that painful deaths are presumptively ones that are incompetently managed and should result in license suspension. "

单选题 From the first paragraph, we learn that ______.

单选题 Which of the following statements is true according to the text?

【正确答案】 C

【答案解析】[解析] 细节判断题。利用选项A(医生如果冒着病人死亡的风险，他们会为此内疚)和选项B(现代的药剂能帮助病人进行无痛的康复)的关键词无法定位到相关信息；利用选项C的关键词可以定位到第一段中“the Court in effect supported the medical principle of "double effect", a centuries-old moral principle holding that an action having two effects—a good one that is intended and a harmful one that is foreseen—is permissible if the actor intends only the good effect”，即“然而最高法庭实际上却认可了医疗界的‘双效’原则，这个存在了好几个世纪的道德原则认为，如果某种行为具有双重效果(希望达到的好效果和可以预见得到的坏效果)，那么，只要行为实施只是想达到好的效果，这个行为就是可以被允许的”，因此选项C(高等法院裁决可以开出大剂量的去痛药)与原文信息相符；利用选项D可以定位到第二段“Doctors have used that principle in recent years to justify using high doses of morphine to control terminally ill patients’pain，”即“医生们一直在借用这项原则，为自己替病危患者注射大剂量的吗啡镇痛的做法提供正当的理由”，所以选项D(医生不再按照他的目的来使用药剂)与原文信息不符。因而，该题的正确答案为C。

单选题 According to the NAS"s report, one of the problems in end-of-life care is ______.

【正确答案】 B

【答案解析】[解析] 细节题。利用定位关键词可以定位到第三段“...the National Academy of Science (NAS) released a two-volume report...It identifies the undertreatment of pain and the aggressive use of "ineffectual and forced medical procedures that may prolong and even dishonor the period of dying" as the twin problems of end-of-life care”，即“国家科学学会公布了(release；reveal)一份长达两卷的报告……报告指出了医院临终关怀护理中存在的两个问题：对病痛处理不力和大胆使用“无效而强制性的医疗程序。”因此选项B(疼痛治疗的不足)为正确答案，其中the undertreatment of pain表明了对待疼痛的不足，undertreatment是处理不足的意思；选项C(系统药物的滥用)比较有迷惑性，原文只是说“systematic patient abuse.”(蓄意虐待病人)而非“systematic drug abuse”。

单选题 Which of the following best defines the word "aggressive" (Paragraph 3) ?

【正确答案】 A

【答案解析】[解析] 猜词题。这道题考查考生根据上下文判断词义的能力。根据语境“It identifies the undertreatment of pain and the aggressive use of "ineffectual and forced medical procedures that may prolong and even dishonor the period of dying" as the twin problems of end-of-life care”，即“报告指出了医院临终关怀护理中存在的两个问题：对病痛处理不力和______使用‘无效而强制性的医疗程序’，将四个选项分别代入后，选项A(大胆的，鲁莽的)比较符合语境，选项B(有害的)、选项C(粗心的)、选项D(绝望的)都与行医的问题不符合，所以正确答案为A。

单选题 George Annas would probably agree that doctors should be punished if they ______.

【正确答案】 D

【答案解析】[解析] 细节题。利用定位关键词可以定位到文章的最后一段“Annas says lawyers can play a key role in insisting that these well-meaning medical initiatives translate into better care. "Large numbers of physicians seem unconcerned with the pain their patients ale needlessly and predictably suffering," to the extent that it constitutes "systematic patient abuse." He says medical licensing boards“must make it clear...that painful deaths are presumptively ones that are incompetently managed and should result in license suspension.”，即“安纳斯说，律师可以在要求把医疗界的这些善意的行为变成更好的护理行动方面发挥关键作用。不少医生对病人所遭受的毫无必要的、可预见的痛苦无动于衷，乃至于已构成‘蓄意虐待病人’。他说，行医资格理事会必须明确表明——病人痛苦地死亡，可以推定，是由于医生处理不力造成的，应该因此吊销其从医资格”，由此可知Annas对大量的医生置病人的痛苦于不顾，无端地延长病人不必要的痛苦这种行为提出了批评，认为这种行为构成了“虐待病人”，并认为这样的医生应该予以吊销行医执照，所以选项D(无端地延长病人不必要的痛苦)为正确答案。