hce_tcu
108年
英文
第 38 題
📖 題組：
The fantasies inspired by TB in the last century, by cancer now, are responses to a disease thought to be intractable and capricious—that is, a disease not understood—in an era in which medicine’s central premise is that all diseases can be cured. Such a disease is, by definition, mysterious. For as long as its cause was not understood and the ministrations of doctors remained so ineffective, TB was thought to be an insidious, implacable theft of a life. Now it is cancer’s turn to be the disease that doesn’t knock before it enters, cancer fills the role of an illness experienced as a ruthless secret invasion—a role it will keep until, one day, its etiology becomes as clear and its treatment as effective as those of TB have become. Although the way in which disease mystifies is set against a backdrop of new expectations, the disease itself (once TB, cancer today) arouses thoroughly old-fashioned kinds of dread. Any disease that is treated as a mystery and acutely enough feared will be felt to be morally, if not literally, contagious. Thus, a surprisingly large number of people with cancer find themselves being shunned by relatives and friends and are the object of practices of decontamination by members of their household, as if cancer, like TB, were an infectious disease. Cancer patients are lied to, not just because the disease is (or is thought to be) a death sentence, but because it is felt to be obscene—in the original meaning of that word: ill-omened, abominable, repugnant to the senses. Cardiac disease implies a weakness, trouble, failure that is mechanical; there is no disgrace, nothing of the taboo that once surrounded peoples afflicted with TB and still surrounds those who have cancer. The metaphors attached to TB and to cancer imply living processes of a particularly resonant and horrid kind.
The fantasies inspired by TB in the last century, by cancer now, are responses to a disease thought to be intractable and capricious—that is, a disease not understood—in an era in which medicine’s central premise is that all diseases can be cured. Such a disease is, by definition, mysterious. For as long as its cause was not understood and the ministrations of doctors remained so ineffective, TB was thought to be an insidious, implacable theft of a life. Now it is cancer’s turn to be the disease that doesn’t knock before it enters, cancer fills the role of an illness experienced as a ruthless secret invasion—a role it will keep until, one day, its etiology becomes as clear and its treatment as effective as those of TB have become. Although the way in which disease mystifies is set against a backdrop of new expectations, the disease itself (once TB, cancer today) arouses thoroughly old-fashioned kinds of dread. Any disease that is treated as a mystery and acutely enough feared will be felt to be morally, if not literally, contagious. Thus, a surprisingly large number of people with cancer find themselves being shunned by relatives and friends and are the object of practices of decontamination by members of their household, as if cancer, like TB, were an infectious disease. Cancer patients are lied to, not just because the disease is (or is thought to be) a death sentence, but because it is felt to be obscene—in the original meaning of that word: ill-omened, abominable, repugnant to the senses. Cardiac disease implies a weakness, trouble, failure that is mechanical; there is no disgrace, nothing of the taboo that once surrounded peoples afflicted with TB and still surrounds those who have cancer. The metaphors attached to TB and to cancer imply living processes of a particularly resonant and horrid kind.
Which of the following word is closest to the original meaning of cancer?
- A impecunious
- B paradoxical
- C enchanting
- D detestable
思路引導 VIP
請仔細閱讀文章第三段中，作者提到癌症被視為「obscene」的那句話。在那個詞後方的破折號（—）之後，作者具體列舉了哪三個形容詞來補充說明這種感覺？這三個形容詞共同指向了什麼樣的情緒特徵？
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AI 詳解
AI 專屬家教
太棒了！你能精準鎖定文章細節並在眾多艱澀詞彙中選出正確答案，展現了非常敏銳的閱讀觀察力。這題的解題關鍵在於第三段提到的核心描述。作者指出癌症在社會心理上被視為一種「猥褻、令人厭惡的」（obscene）存在，並進一步解釋這個詞在原始語境中代表「不祥的、可惡的、感官上令人反感的」（ill-omened, abominable, repugnant）。選項 (D) detestable（可憎的、令人厭惡的）正好完美對應了文本中的「abominable」與「repugnant」。
文本脈絡與語意分析
此題屬於典型的「上下文語意推論題」，具有中高難度的鑑別度。難點在於學生必須先辨識出作者並非在討論癌症的生物學定義，而是在剖析它帶給大眾的「文化隱喻」。這需要讀者具備釐清複雜句型結構的能力，將形容詞 obscene 後方的補充說明，與選項進行正確的邏輯對應。你能在多個長難詞中辨識出這層轉換，代表你的詞彙量與閱讀深度都相當紮實！