English - Verbal

English - Verbal

The meaning of some selected words in English.

1.       Affliction - distress, suffering

2.       Docile - easily trained or controlled

3.       Efface - rub or wipe out, obliterate

4.       Elucidate - to make understandable

5.       Enthral - take the whole attention, enslave

6.       Petulant - unreasonably impatient or irritable

7.       Quenching - satisfy, put an end to, put out

8.       Reticent - in the habit of saying little

9.       Tantalize - raise hopes that cannot be realized

10.   Taciturn - unspoken, silent

Passage

Nearly forty years ago, former President Kennedy signed the National Reproductive Policy Act, this nation's first major federal law addressing federal reproductive freedom. Although the nation has now witnessed almost forty years of continuing debate (5) about abortion freedom law, a relatively new element has recently entered the controversy: the use of partial birth procedures and their high risks in facilitating voluntary third trimester pregnancy terminations.

(10) Before the development of techniques to facilitate partial birth abortions, when an unwanted pregnancy occurred, a government agency often simply told a patient she could only abort during the first trimester. Doctors performing the procedures often relied on visual observations to determine compliance with the legal time limits. (15) Most reproductive freedom professionals consider flexible legal guidelines an improvement over pre-1960 restrictions because it provides a factual and scientific basis for the abortion methodology rather than an intuitive or emotional basis. Accordingly, many reproductive freedom professionals regard formal abortion laws (20) to be neutral policy tools that can be employed by the government to make sound policy judgments that assure efficient and appropriate procedures.

But are abortion laws and their proponents really neutral political (25) issues? Analysis of the choices that must be made in reproductive issues makes the answer clear. Because pregnancy termination depends on choices for which there is no a priori legal method of deciding from among available assumptions, decisions ultimately depends largely, if not predominantly, on values (30) positions rather than on legal precedent . Laws must now govern partial birth abortion methodology for women's health, including a determination of whether the procedure will cause an adverse health effect; dose-response assessment of drugs, an analysis of the relationship between an administered dose and the incidence of (35) the adverse health effect; exposure assessment, an analysis of the processes and pathways by which contact with a labour-inducement drug creates opportunity for exposure; and risk characterization, the process of identifying the incidence of adverse health effects under various clinical conditions-requires the application (40) of some judgment that must ultimately rely on some- thing less than legally-proven principles. Indeed, many of the choices that must be made in completing a risk assessment must be viewed as pure values judgments. For example, in the hazard identification portion of an assessment, the decision (45) on picking a confidence level to determine statistically whether there has been a positive determination of whether a labour-inducement drug is a hazard is a pure values judgment.

Decisions on reproductive freedom based on current risk assessment (50) procedures should therefore be viewed primarily as ethical choices rather than as technically dictated conclusions. It is important in an age of increasing scientific complexity that interested parties attempt to understand the values positions and ethical issues that underlie legally derived policy (55) choices. Government must bring greater clarity to the debate about reproductive freedom through identification of the embedded values positions and issues in therapeutic abortion procedures.

1. Which one of the following best expresses the main point of the passage?

(A) Therapeutic abortion is an improvement over past methods because it is based more on factual evidence than on intuition.
(B) Former President Kennedy did more than his predecessors to protect the reproductive freedom of women by approving the use of first trimester abortion.
(C) Though perhaps more radical than previous birth control measures, partial birth abortion is a value-free process.
(D) While the concept of partial birth abortion is enticing from a scientific viewpoint, this method is so expensive that its use is impractical on a large scale.
(E) Since past abortion procedures were effective in the first trimester, the government should not have approved further restrictions on its use or implementation.

Ans: Choice C correctly and elegantly sums up the author's scepticism. Choice A contradicts the author's view, while B violates the actual timeline of events. Choice D totally misses the ethical question, while E goes too far.

2. All of the following are explicitly mentioned in the passage as part of the adverse health effects EXCEPT

(A) visual observation
(B) exposure assessment
(C) analysis of labour-inducement drugs
(D) risk characterization

(E) dose-response assessment

 Ans: Choice A is correct. All other components appear explicitly in the four wrong choices.

3. The author most probably mentions "confidence level" (line 45) in order to

(A) demonstrate that partial birth procedures are safer than past abortion methods
(B) question the accuracy of physician's clinical observations
(C) suggest that government should eliminate ambiguities in its reproductive freedom agenda
(D) show that non legal principles can affect subsequent legal decisions
(E) strengthen the notion that the National Reproductive Policy Act needs to be modified

Ans: Choice D is correct. Choices A and B refer to earlier efforts, while C comes at the very end of the passage. E has no connection with either risk assessment or the line in question.

4. The author suggests which one of the following about abortion methods that predated the development of the partial birth procedure?

(A) They are considered to be completely ineffective in protecting women's health.
(B) President Kennedy's National Reproductive Policy Act was based on their success.
(C) Many reproductive freedom professionals are not satisfied with the results produced by these methods.
(D) They are often difficult to apply because they depend on precise time limitations.
(E) The best features of these methods should be integrated into the partial birth process.

Ans: Choice C is easily inferable from the passage. Choice A goes too far, while B and E aren't supported by the passage. Choice D is simply incorrect.

5. Which of the following words, as it appears in the passage, best supports the author's view of the role of non-legal components in the risk assessment process?

(A) improvement (line 16)
(B) neutral (line 20)
(C) adverse (line 35)
(D) opportunity (line 38)
(E)  underlie (line 54)

Ans: Choice E best captures the main idea. Choices A and B are not improvements, while D is too positive. Choice C is tempting, but does not capture the idea as well as

6. The passage's reference to the "factual and scientific basis" of abortion rights process in line 17 serves which of the following functions?

(A) It explains the government's unwillingness to choose between older methods and the assessment of newer ones.
(B) It outlines the differences among reproductive freedomists over the practicality of visual observation techniques.
(C) It underscores the belief of reproductive freedomists that risk assessment is a useful method for evaluating new procedures.
(D) It introduces birth control policy choices for which there is no a priori assessment method.
(E) It highlights the attitude of reproductive freedomists toward the National Reproductive Policy Act.

Ans: Choice C is correct. Choice A is not mentioned in the passage, while B refers to a topic on which the passage's reproductive freedomists are undivided. Choices D and E come at incorrect points in the passage to make sense.

7. The author of the passage is primarily concerned with

(A) comparing risk assessment of new procedures with earlier abortion methods
(B) explaining why government should make explicit the ethical choices involved in reproductive freedom choices
(C) highlighting government's inability to deal effectively with reproductive freedom issues
(D) reviewing the evolution of abortion methods over the past two decades
(E) proposing a new method for reproductive freedom that incorporates the best features of risk assessment

Ans: Choice B well captures the overall concept of the passage. Choice A pushes too far, while C, D and E all miss the heart of the passage.