2. 外语
  3. 1 Medical consumerism — like all sorts of consumerism, only more menacingly — is designed to be unsatisfying. The prolongat

1 Medical consumerism — like all sorts of consumerism, only more menacingly — is designed to be unsatisfying. The prolongat

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问题 1      Medical consumerism — like all sorts of consumerism, only more menacingly — is designed to be unsatisfying. The prolongation of life and the search for perfect health (beauty, youth, happiness) are inherently self-defeating. The law of diminishing returns necessarily applies. You can make higher percentages of people survive into their eighties and nineties. But, as any geriatric ward shows that is not the same as to confer enduring mobility, awareness and autonomy. Extending life grows medically feasible, but it is often a life deprived of everything, and one exposed to degrading neglect as resources grow over- stretched and politics turn mean.
2      What an ignominious destiny for medicine if its future turned into one of bestowing meagre increments of unenjoyed life!  It would mirror the fate of athletics,  in which disproportionate energies and resources — not least medical ones, like illegal steroids — are now invested to shave records by milliseconds.  And, it goes without saying, the logical extension of longevism — the "abolition" of death — would not be a solution but only an exacerbation. To air these predicaments is not anti-medical spleen — a churlish reprisal against medicine for its victories — but simply to face the growing reality of medical power not exactly without responsibility but with dissolving goals.
3      Hence medicine’s finest hour becomes the dawn of its dilemmas. For centuries, medicine was impotent and hence unproblematic. From the Greeks to the Great War, its job was simple, to struggle with lethal diseases and gross disabilities, to ensure live births, and to manage pain. It performed these uncontroversial tasks by and large with meagre success. Today, with mission accomplished, medicine’s triumphs are dissolving in disorientation. Medicine has led to vastly inflated expectations, which the public has eagerly swallowed. Yet as these expectations grow unlimited, they become unfulfillable. The task facing medicine in the twenty-first century will be to redefine its limits even as it extends its capacities.
选项 A、mobility.
B、deprivation.
C、autonomy.
D、awareness.
答案B
解析 ▲consumerism这里指(20世纪60年代始于美国的)保护消费者利益运动。
▲law of diminishing returns递减收益法则
▲...one exposed to degrading neglect as resources grow over-stretched and politics turn mean．随着社会资源过分扩展(暗指用到不该用的地方)，政治变得卑鄙，人的寿命虽然可以借助医学而延长，但延长了的生命往往不尽如人意，因为别人会疏忽你，而这又会让人感到羞辱和丢脸。
▲What an ignominious destiny for medicine if its future turned into one of bestowing meagre increments of unenjoyed life!如果医学将来仅仅是以低劣质量延长不令人愉快的寿命，那么，医学的前景也就太不光彩了! ignominious表示“不光彩的”、“可耻的”。meagre表示“质量差的”、“粗劣的”。increment表示“增加”。
▲shave削减
▲exacerbation加深，加剧，恶化
▲To air these predicaments is not anti-medical spleen—a churlish reprisal against medicine for its victories...提出这些(不利)情况并不表示自己有一股反对医学的恶气，或是因为医学取得一个又一个胜利而对其实施粗暴报复。
▲dissolving goals不断分裂的目标
▲...medicine’s triumphs are dissolving in disorientation．dissolving这里表示“融化”、“消失”，为比喻用法。医学所取得的胜利或成就因为其方向迷失(即刻意追求延长寿限)而消失。
▲inflated expectations膨胀的或过多增加的期盼
此题为细节理解题。据第1段，尤其是其最后1句的前部分可知。据第l段第5句可排除A，C，D。
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