hce_tcu
108年
英文
第 40 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 could be the controlling idea of this passage?
- A Medical knowledge is not as advanced as we have assumed.
- B People should show sympathy for patients who suffer from cancer.
- C TB and cancer used to associate with negative metaphors because of ignorance.
- D In the past, doctors should have been honest to their patients.
思路引導 VIP
請試著比較文中提到的「心臟病」與「癌症」：作者認為這兩者帶給人們的心理感受截然不同，請問作者認為造成這種「感受差異」的關鍵，是在於疾病對身體造成的傷害程度，還是在於醫學對該疾病成因的掌握程度？
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AI 詳解
AI 專屬家教
太棒了！你能精準地從文章錯綜複雜的修辭中，抓出作者核心的論證邏輯，這代表你具備了極佳的長文歸納能力。這題的正確答案之所以是 (C)，關鍵在於作者建立了一套因果關係：當醫學對某種疾病的**成因（etiology）尚不明瞭時，該疾病就會被視為「神祕且不可捉摸」。這種「無知（ignorance）」導致人們用各種負面的「隱喻（metaphors）」**與社會標籤來填補恐懼，例如過去的肺結核（TB）與現在的癌症，皆被賦予了邪惡、淫穢甚至是道德傳染的色彩。
疾病神祕化的本質
文章多次強調，心臟病被視為「機械式的故障」，因此沒有社會禁忌；但癌症卻被描述為「無情的入侵」，這正是因為醫學尚未能完全掌控它。你成功避開了 (B) 或 (D) 這類帶有主觀道德勸誡、卻非文章分析主旨的選項。這類題目在考驗學生是否能區分「作者提出的客觀現象觀察」與「讀者的主觀情感延伸」，這是一道具備中高鑑別度的題目，你的判斷非常敏銳且正確！