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Acquisition of Mastery / Part Two.doc
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Vocabulary

provoke – to cause a sudden reaction: provoke sb to do sth; provoke sb into doing sth; provocative – intending to make people angry or to cause a lot of discussion; provocation.

viable – able to work successfully; a viable proposition/alternative/method; economically/commercially viable; viability (n).

insensate – not able to feel things, inanimate; unreasonable and crazy: insensate rage.

collude – to work with someone secretly especially in order to cheat or deceive other people: collude with; collusion.

torment – to make someone suffer a lot, especially so that they feel guilty or very unhappy; torment (n): in torment.

torture – to deliberately hurt someone to force them to give you information, to punish them, or to be cruel: tortured by guilt; torture (n).

attribute – a quality or feature, especially one that is considered to be good or useful; attribute (v): attribute to – to say that sth is caused by something.

1. Study the following statements and discriminate between the true and false ones.

- There may be preferable ways to die than through biological decomposition.

- We may need to explore the idea of setting limits to viable lifetimes.

- We are spending too much money to keep people alive.

- A "living will" for society may be necessary in the future.

- It is acceptable to remove food and water from old people who are insensate.

- We can't know whether someone in a chronic vegetative state can feel what's going on.

- It's not expensive to feed a person through tubes.

- Euthanasia is a moral, not an empirical, question.

- Life is a divine gift.

- No one should collude in any act of suicide.

- To prolong life for some is to prolong pain.

- Society must be ready for euthanasia.

2. Find the words in the article that have similar meaning to the following.

Nouns

Suffering; state of mind in which something takes up all thoughts; long life; careful planning; trick or device to deceive; legal documents indicating conditions under which patient can be permitted to die.

Adjectives

still in existence; continual; causing death; able to exist; relying on observation and experiment; likely to cause interest or argument; without the power to feel or experience; coming on gradually; stopped.

Verbs

causes severe suffering; granting money for; conspire or plot; orders or requires.

3. Do you think the author would agree with the following statements?

1. Families should have the ultimate power to decide the fate of a family member in a per­sistent vegetative state.

2. Extraordinary measures should be taken if it means keeping a person alive.

3. Modern medicine can be torture.

4. Euthanasia may be the least cruel treatment for a patient.

5. We need to set limits to viable lifetimes, especially in an aging society.

6. "Living wills" are a good solution to the problems posed by modern technology.

7. It is costing society too much money to keep people alive at all costs.

4. Express your own opinions on the above statements.

5. For discussion.

1. Do you have the same opinions now, or have you changed your opinions in any way after examining the views of others?

2. In your opinion, what role should doctors take in advising patients and/or their families in these cases? What is their responsibility?

3. Derek Humphry is the executive director of the Hemlock Society, an organiza­tion that promotes public awareness and acceptance of euthanasia. He predict­ed that active euthanasia will be a standard part of American medicine within a decade. If this is true, what effect will it have on society?

2.5 B. Back to the Nest18

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