There are so many new books about dying that there are now special shelves set aside for them in bookshops, along with the health-diet and home-repair paperbacks. Some of them are so 1 with detailed information and step-by-step instructions for performing the function, that you'd think this was a new sort of 2 which all of us are now required to learn. The strongest impression the casual reader gets is that proper dying has become an extraordinary, 3 an exotic experience, something only the specially trained can do. 4 , you could be led to believe that we are the only 5 capable of being aware of death, and that when the rest of nature is experiencing the life cycle and dying, one generation after 6 , it is a different kind of process, done automatically and trivially, or more "natural", as we say. An elm in our backyard 7 the blight (枯萎病) this summer and dropped stone dead, leafless, almost overnight. One weekend 8 was a normal-looking elm, maybe a little bare in spots but 9 alarming, and the next weekend it was gone, passed over, departed, taken. Taken is right, for the tree surgeon came by yesterday with his 10 of young helpers and their cherry picker, and took it down branch by branch and carted it off in the back of a red truck, everyone 11 . The dying 12 a field mouse, at the jaws of an amiable household cat, is a spectacle I have beheld many times. It 13 to make me wince. However, early in life I gave up throwing sticks 14 the cat to make him drop the mouse, 15 the dropped mouse regularly went ahead and died anyway.

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 medication 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 good 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 modern 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, em>Approaching Death: Improving Care at the End of Life/em>. 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. The profession is taking steps to require young doctors to train in hospitals, 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. "A large number 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". We learn from the passage that ______.

We met Mary and her husband at a party two months ago.______we've had no further communication.

Learning disabilities are very common

There is a loss of self-confidence

Plastic bags are useful for holding many kinds of food, ______ their cleanness, toughness, and low cost.

The leaders of the two countries are planning their summit meeting with a______to maintain and develop good ties.

em>Directions: In this section

Helen could not help feeling antipathy toward her father's new wife whom he married just two months after the death of Helen's mother.

The press mocked his attempts to appeal to young voters.

Books are to mankind what memory is to individual. They contain the history of our race

The poet William Blake wrote in the early nineteenth century: "Great things are done when men and mountains meet." Great things indeed were done on Mount Everest in May of 1996. Also poignant things, foolish things, deadly things: Hundreds of climbers from eleven different expeditions were on the mountain—thirty-one near the summit—when a freakish and fierce-some storm blew in. Eight climbers perished, the highest one-day death toll since the first expedition tried to reach the top of the world's tallest peak in 1921. Adventurers have always sought challenges: deeper jungles, wider oceans, newer worlds. But mountains have been special. Perhaps it's their size, their power, their resistance to conquest. In Patrick Meyers's play em>K2/em>, a marooned climber on the Himalaya peak that gives the play its name delivers this line: "Mountains are metaphors." And so they are. Climbers search not just for summits but also for themselves. They reach up to reach in. That helps explain why Everest has been enveloped by "Mountain Madness", the name of a Seattle company that offers guided tours of the peak for about $65,000 (plus airfare to Nepal). New technology and equipment have also helped: lighter gear, warmer clothing, better radios and telephones, And the adventure can be shared, practically in real time, with Internet browsers around the world. But the community of high-mountain explorers now is gripped by soul-searching and second-guessing. Everest, after all, is not a theme peak. Some of the dead were experienced guides who lost their lives trying to save less agile amateurs. Said Mark Bryant, editor of em>Outside Magazine/em>: Some of us have been asking: "Is it right that an average climber can order an ascent of Everest out of a catalog?" An Australian mountaineer, Tim McCartney-Snape, told the Associated Press: "Some things should remain sacred, and Everest is one of them. Even the strongest and toughest have found it can be extremely difficult just existing at that altitude, without other people depending on you." On Everest, dependency can lead to heroism and to tragedy, One frostbitten amateur, Seaborne Weathers of Dallas, was plucked from a rocky ledge at 22,000 feet by a Nepalese army helicopter—an act of incredible bravery. And Rob Hall, a guide who had climbed Everest several times, stayed on its slops with a dying customer. After learning they were hopelessly trapped, Hall managed to place a satellite telephone call to his pregnant wife, Jan, in New Zealand. "Hey, look," he told her, "don't worry about me." At that moment, Hall remembered Harold, the character in K2 who muses: "Understanding has no meaning, Holding on, just holding on, that has meaning." Like Harold, he knew the mountain was still a mountain. Still a goal. Still a dream. And he couldn't hold on. Rob Hall died before rescuers could reach him. Which of the following statements best describes the author's point of view?

Oxford and Cambridge University Boat Clubs have both taken the opportunity to travel to Spain this month to train in less testing weather conditions than those which have, quite literally, already blown around the UK in January of 2007. Each group of athletes has been focused on training to the maximum, working on technique and molding themselves into two potential fighting units per Club for the 2007 Boat Race, sponsored by Xchanging. One set will be in the Blue Boat for each club and one set will race as reserves in Isis, for Oxford, and Goldie, for Cambridge. In these modern times, the Head Coach for each club has a huge input on selection even though the crew is still named by the President. Just twenty years ago the balance was not quite the same. The year 1987 will always be remembered in the history of this great Race as the year of the "mutiny" at Oxford. It is a tale which has since been retold and reworked in both a book and a movie. This was the season for which mature Scottish student, Donald MacDonald, was elected President, having all ready won a Blue in 1986. MacDonald re-appointed Daniel Topolski (now a renowned rowing journalist and broadcaster) as Chief Coach. Part of the 1986/1987 squad at Oxford included American Chris Clark, now a coach at an American University, and four fellow US internationals. Allegedly, a split appeared in the squad between the American quintet, all experienced and leading oarsmen, and those rowers closest to MacDonald. The Scot's group were happy to follow Topolski's regime whilst the others were not so sure. Following a contentious seat racing trial in January of 1987, Topolski decided to move Clark to the bow-side of the beat. Clark disagreed. Topolski held firm. As a result Clark and his "group" within the squad decided not to row and sought a takeover. The squabble was played out extensively in the UK national media and caught the public imagination. MacDonald sought support from the college captains and eventually won a vote of confidence by 28 votes to 11. Without the Americans, the Oxford crew was immediately considered a lost cause. Cambridge were overwhelming favorites to win. As it turned out, though, this was a Race which would prove why sport, and particularly The Boat Race, can be so fascinating. It can be inferred that "Isis" and "Goldie" are the names of two ______.

The two delegates had an in-depth exchange of views on how to enhance their______cooperation.

This problem should be discussed first

If he ______ my advice

Even though the bell for dismissing class has rung

The digestive enzyme pepsin breaks down proteins into components ______ readily absorbed by the human body.

The English Corner in Zhongshan Park are where people 1 go to practise their speaking