Text 3

Could the bad old days of economic decline be about to return? Since OPEC agreed to supply-cuts in March, the price of crude oil has jumped to almost $26 a barrel, up from less than $10 last December. This near-tripling of oil prices calls up scary memories of the 1973 oil shock, when prices quadrupled, and 1979-80, when they also almost tripled. Both previous shocks resulted in double-digit inflation and global economic decline. So where are the headlines warning of gloom and doom this time?

The oil price was given another push up this week when Iraq suspended oil exports. Strengthening economic growth, at the same time as winter grips the northern hemisphere, could push the price higher still in the short term.

Yet there are good reasons to expect the economic consequences now to be less severe than in the 1970s. In most countries the cost of crude oil now accounts for a smaller share of the price of petrol than it did in the 1970s. In Europe, taxes account for up to four-fifths of the retail price, so even quite big changes in the price of crude have a more muted effect on pump prices than in the past.

Rich economies are also less dependent on oil than they were, and so less sensitive to swings in the oil price. Energy conservation, a shift to other fuels and a decline in the importance of heavy, energy-intensive industries have reduced oil consumption. Software, consultancy and mobile telephones use far less oil than steel or car production. For each dollar of GDP (in constant prices) rich economies now use nearly 50% less oil than in 1973. The OECD estimates in its latest Economic Outlook that, if oil prices averaged $22 a barrel for a full year, compared with $13 in 1998, this would increase the oil import bill in rich economies by only 0.25-0.5% of GDP. That is less than one-quarter of the income loss in 1974 or 1980. On the other hand, oil-importing emerging economies -- to which heavy industry has shifted -- have become more energy-intensive, and so could be more seriously squeezed.

One more reason not to lose sleep over the rise in oil prices is that, unlike the rises in the 1970s, it has not occurred against the background of general commodity-price inflation and global excess demand. A sizable portion of the world is only just emerging from economic decline. The Economist’s commodity price index is broadly unchanging from a year ago. In 1973 commodity prices jumped by 70%, and in 1979 by almost 30%.

51. The main reason for the latest rise of oil price is ________.

[A] global inflation

[B] reduction in supply

[C] fast growth in economy

[D] Iraq’s suspension of exports

52. It can be inferred from the text that the retail price of petrol will go up dramatically if ________.

[A] price of crude rises

[B] commodity prices rise

[C] consumption rises

[D] oil taxes rise

53. The estimates in Economic Outlook show that in rich countries ________.

[A] heavy industry becomes more energy-intensive

[B] income loss mainly results from fluctuating crude oil prices

[C] manufacturing industry has been seriously squeezed

[D] oil price changes have no significant impact on GDP

54. We can draw a conclusion from the text that ________.

[A] oil-price shocks are less shocking now

[B] inflation seems irrelevant to oil-price shocks

[C] energy conservation can keep down the oil prices

[D] the price rise of crude leads to the shrinking of heavy industry

55. From the text we can see that the writer seems ________.

[A] optimistic

[B] sensitive

[C] gloomy

[D] scared

Text 4

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 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, Approaching Death: Improving Care at the End of Life. 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 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.”

56. From the first three paragraphs, we learn that ________.

[A] doctors used to increase drug dosages to control their patients’ pain

[B] it is still illegal for doctors to help the dying end their lives

[C] the Supreme Court strongly opposes physician-assisted suicide

[D] patients have no constitutional right to commit suicide

57. Which of the following statements is true according to the text?

[A] Doctors will be held guilty if they risk their patients’ death.

[B] Modern medicine has assisted terminally ill patients in painless recovery.

[C] The Court ruled that high-dosage pain-relieving medication can be prescribed.

[D] A doctor’s medication is no longer justified by his intentions.

58. According to the NAS’s report, one of the problems in end-of-life care is ________.

[A] prolonged medical procedures

[B] inadequate treatment of pain

[C] systematic drug abuse

[D] insufficient hospital care

59. Which of the following best defines the word “aggressive” (Line 3, Paragraph 7)?

[A] Bold

[B] Harmful

[C] Careless

[D] Desperate

60. George Annas would probably agree that doctors should be punished if they ________.

[A] manage their patients incompetently

[B] give patients more medicine than needed

[C] reduce drug dosages for their patients

[D] prolong the needless suffering of the patients

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