21. The author's primary purpose is to .
A) criticize doctors for exercising too much control over patients
B) analyze some important economic factors in health-care
C) urge hospitals to reclaim their decision-making authority
D) inform potential patients of their health-care rights
22. It can be inferred that doctors are able to determine hospital policies because .
A) it is doctors who generate income for the hospital
B) most of a patient's bills are paid by his health insurance
C) a doctor is ultimately responsible for a patient's health
D) some patients might refuse to accept their physician's advice
23. According to the author, when a doctor tells a patient to“return next Wednesday”, the doctor is in effect .
A) instructing the patient to buy more medical services
B) warning the patient that a hospital stay might be necessary
C) advising the patient to seek a second opinion
D) admitting that the initial visit was ineffective
24. The author is most probably leading up to .
A) a proposal to control medical costs
B) a discussion of a new medical treatment
C) an analysis of the cause of inflation in the United States
D) a study of lawsuits against doctors for malpractice
25. With which of the following statements would the author be likely to agree?A) Few patients are reluctant to object to the course of the treatment prescribed by a doctor or to question the cost of the services.
B) The more serious the illness of a patient, the less likely it is that the patient will object to the course of treatment prescribed or to question the cost of services.
C) The payer, whether insurance carrier or the government is less likely to acquiesce to demands for payment when the illness of the patient is regarded as serious.
D) Both A and B
Questions 26 to 30 are based on the following passage:
For me, scientific knowledge is divided into mathematical sciences, natural sciences or sciences dealing with the natural world (physical and biological sciences), and sciences dealing with mankind (psychology, sociology, all the sciences of cultural achievements, every kind of historical knowledge). Apart from these sciences is philosophy, about which we will talk later. In the first place, all this is pure or theoretical knowledge, sought only for the purpose of understanding, in order to fulfill the need to understand what is intrinsic (固有的) and consubstantial (同體的) to man. What distinguishes man from animal is that he knows and needs to know. If man did not know that the world was of a certain kind, that he was in the world and that he himself was of a certain kind, he wouldn't be man. The technical aspects or applications of knowledge are equally necessary for man and are of the greatest importance, because they also contribute to defining him to pursue a life increasingly more truly human.
But even while enjoying the results of technical progress, he must defend the primacy and autonomy of pure knowledge. Knowledge sought directly for its practical applications will have immediate and foreseeable success, but not the kind of important result whose revolutionary scope is in large part unforeseen, except by the imagination of the Utopians. Let me recall a well-known example. If the Greek mathematicians had not applied themselves to the investigation of conic sections, zealously and without the least suspicion that it might someday be useful, it would not have been possible centuries later to navigate far from shore. The first men to study the nature of electricity could not imagine that their experiments, carried on because of mere intellectual curiosity, would eventually lead to modern electrical technology, without which we can scarcely conceive of contemporary life. Pure knowledge is valuable for its own sake, because the human spirit cannot resign itself to ignorance. But, in addition, it is the foundation for practical results that would not have been reached if this knowledge had not been sought disinterestedly.
