1、专业英语八级（作文）模拟试卷 74及答案与解析 一、 PART V WRITING 1 Euthanasia is the deliberate advancement of a persons death for the benefit of that person. In most cases euthanasia is carried out because the person who is usually terminally ill asks to die. It can be carried out either by doing something, such as admin
2、istering a lethal injection, or by not doing something necessary to keep the person alive. The following are opinions on the necessity of legalizing euthanasia. Write an article of NO LESS THAN 300 words, in which you should: 1. summarize the arguments, and then 2. express your opinion towards eutha
3、nasia, especially whether it should be legalized. Bonnie Malkin, Professor of Ave Maria School of Law Our legal system accepts that people have a legal right to choose when to die, as demonstrated by the fact that suicide is legal. This right is denied to those who are incapable of taking their own
4、lives unaided. Legalising euthanasia would redress this balance. Our legal system also recognises that assisting a suicide attempt is a crime. Human beings are independent biological entities, and as an adult, have the right to take and carry out decisions about themselves. A human being decides who
5、 they spend their life with, their career path, where they live, whether to bear children. So what is the harm in allowing a terminally ill patient to decide for themselves whether they die in a hospital or in their own home? Surely a terminally ill sufferer is better qualified to decide for themsel
6、ves whether they are better off dead or alive? Their disease makes them so crippled they cannot commit suicide alone. A quote from The Independent in this March stated that “So long as the patient is lucid, and his or her intent is clear beyond doubt, there need be no further questions“. Human being
7、s should be as free as possible and unnecessary restraints on human rights are strongly discouraged. Luke Gormally, first Research Officer of The Linacre Centre The prestigious position of doctors could quite easily be abused if euthanasia were to become legalised. A prime example of this would be t
8、he late Dr Harold Shipman, who killed between 215 and 260 elderly women. Vulnerable, ill people trust their doctor and if he confidently suggested a course of action, it could be hard to resist. A patient and his family would generally decide in favour of euthanasia according to the details fed to t
9、hem by their doctor. These details may not even be well founded: diagnoses can be mistaken and new treatment developed which the doctor does not know about. Surely it is wrong to give one or two individuals the right to decide whether a patient should live or die. On the contrary, the majority of do
10、ctors would make well-informed, responsible and correct decisions, but for those few like Harold Shipman, they can get away with murder, undetected, for 23 years. Gina Barton, American journalist If a terminal patient faces a long, slow, painful death, surely it is much kinder to spare them this kin
11、d of suffering and allow them to end their life comfortably. Pain medications used to alleviate symptoms often have unpleasant side effects or may leave the patient in a state of sedation. It is not as if they are really “living“ during this time; they are merely waiting to die. They should have the
12、 right to avoid this kind of torturous existence and be allowed to die in a humane way. 2 A surrogate mother is a woman who carries a child, usually for an infertile couple. There are two types of surrogacy, traditional and gestational. The traditional type of surrogacy involves the surrogate mother
13、 being inseminated with the sperm of the intended father. In gestational surrogacy, eggs and sperm are extracted from the donors and implanted into the surrogate. Despite of its benefits, surrogacy is only legalized in few states, like the US and India. The following article illustrates the reason o
14、f banning surrogacy in France. Write an article of NO LESS THAN 800 words, in which you should: 1. summarize the article briefly, and then 2. express your opinion towards surrogacy, especially whether it should be legalized. Why Has France Banned Surrogate Motherhood? Shortly after it emerged in the
15、 1980s, surrogate motherhood was dealt a severe blow in France by a decision of its highest civil court. In 1991, it ruled that an agreement entered into by a woman to conceive, bear a child, and relinquish it at birth, albeit for benign reasons, was contrary to the public policy principle of unavai
16、lability of both the human body and civil status. This prohibition was confirmed in the Bioethics Act of 1994. In the last few years the issue of legalizing gestational surrogacy has resurfaced for many reasons. First of all, there is growing demand for autonomy, particularly with regards to individ
17、ual life choices. There is also a persistent specific demand from women whose infertility is related to congenital malformation, cancer surgery, postpartum hemorrhage, or exposure to Distilbene. Last but not least, people can turn to international surrogacy in the United States or in countries such
18、as Ukraine and India where specialized clinics operate for foreigners. Today, however, the prohibition of surrogate motherhood is still supported by a majority of French citizens. It is justified by ethical concerns regarding the child, the surrogate mother, and society as a whole. Firstly, children
19、 may be psychologically at risk in such transactions. Ignoring or denying the effects of pregnancy and the mother-child relationship on the childs future could well be damaging for him or her as well as for the intended parents; and children could become commodities traded as merchandise between sur
20、rogate mothers and infertile couples. Secondly, even aside from the physical risks of pregnancy, the gestational mother is exposed to two dangers: becoming attached to the child and suffering from the separation after birth, since she knows that, for her, childbirth will mean an end rather than a be
21、ginning. France is also concerned about the fact that there is an inherent social division in this practice: surrogate mothers are usually from lower economic backgrounds and can be economically exploited in this transaction. Thirdly, surrogacy could threaten the symbolic image of women and the prin
22、ciple of human dignity that enjoys constitutional recognition. In France, dignity is often regarded as an obligation that individuals owe themselves to remain worthy of their human condition. Individuals are free to decide what constitutes their own dignity provided the dignity of others is not harm
23、ed. While it is highly plausible that some surrogates are acting entirely of their own free will, it is still wrong for society to accept a form of alienation, however voluntary. 3 Death penalty or not? That is a question facing judges who handle child-trafficking cases these days. Lately, calls on
24、social media to hand down capital punishment to anyone involved in child trafficking triggered a heated debate on the appropriate punishment for such offenses. From the following excerpts, you can find that there seems to be a contradiction of opinions between netizens and jurists. Write an article
25、of NO LESS THAN 300 words, in which you should: 1. summarize the opinions from both sides, and then 2. express your opinion towards this campaign, especially whether child traffickers should be sentenced to death. Excerpt 1 Lately, an appeal to institute the death penalty against all those convicted
26、 of child trafficking has gained a significant following online and launched a substantial debate on the subject. The campaign was initiated with a photo captioned: “China should change its legislation on child trafficking. People trafficking children should be sentenced to death. Why should they be
27、 given a second chance when the children they harmed dont get any?“ In less than two days, the post has been viewed more than 1.5 million times on Weibo and has been shared by thousands of supporters on WeChat. A recent poll on Sina found that 88.3 percent of the more than 21,000 respondents were un
28、satisfied with Chinas crackdown on child trafficking with 92.5 percent recommending that the same punishment imposed on traffickers should also be applied to buyers in order to stop the lucrative trade in children. Chen Shiqu, director of the anti-human-trafficking office under the Criminal Investig
29、ation Department at the Ministry of Public Security, is well-known online as Chinas top official in charge of fighting human traffickers. Chen wrote in a micro blog that defendants in “major child-trafficking cases should be sentenced to death to deter such crimes“. He said judicial authorities have
30、 handed down punishment to child traffickers, resulting in rampant occurrences of such crimes. “Appropriately using the death penalty on those who commit harmful crimes will effectively curb such crimes,“ he said. Excerpt 2 Not all law experts and lawyers agree that the death penalty is appropriate
31、for all child traffickers. Gu Yongzhong, professor at the China University of Political Science and Law, argued that its effect would be limited “It doesnt mean that if we draft a special law to stipulate severe punishment, such as issuing death sentence, on traffickers, such crimes may dramatically
32、 decline,“ Gu said. Some are worried that sentencing all human traffickers to death would remove the difference of penalties for two groups of traffickers those who trafficked children but didnt harm them, and those who hurt and even killed victims. Wang Jin, a graduate student majoring in criminal
33、procedure laws at Renmin University of China, and a mother of a 2-year-old girl, said: “I personally hate child traffickers. But if the judicial authorities sentence them all to death, abducted children could fall into danger and the suspects may become so desperate that they seriously injury or eve
34、n kill the children, which will make it harder for the police to arrest them.“ Zheng Kai, a Beijing criminal lawyer, said: “We can learn from other countries, where criminal offenses havent risen although they abolished the death penally. Abolishing the death penalty is a worldwide trend.“ 4 Being a
35、ble to choose the sex of children in advance is nothing new parents undergoing IVF treatment for infertility have been able to cherry-pick male or female embryos for implantation at US clinics for some time. However, there is a ban on sex selection in many countries. Stephen Wilkinson, Professor of
36、Bioethics at Keele University, illustrates his viewpoint on the issue in the following article. Read it carefully and write your response in NO LESS THAN 300 words, in which you should: 1. summarize briefly Wilkinsons opinion; 2. give your comment. For millennia, people have sought to influence the
37、gender of their offspring and there are numerous folk myths about, for example, the effect of different sexual positions or foods on your babys sex. Nowadays there are some much more reliable methods, like preimplantation genetic diagnosis (PGD). This involves creating several embryos outside the bo
38、dy and implanting only male or female ones. Another option is sperm sorting, which involves dividing a sperm sample into “male“ and “female“ subgroups. I believe that we should allow sex selection in the UK within the context of our carefully regulated reproductive medicine sector. In some other par
39、ts of the world, sex selection is available on demand, provided that you are able and willing to pay for it. In the UK, it is not. Available evidence suggests that, in Western Europe, the number of parents preferring boys is roughly the same as the number preferring girls. As well as concerns about
40、population sex ratio, people often cite moral objections to sex selection, like saying children should be regarded as “gifts“ meaning there should be no attempt by parents to pick and choose their characteristics. Others say sex selection is sexist and that allowing it here would make it harder for
41、countries where a ban on sex selection may well be justified to resist All of these arguments can be countered. Firstly, should parents regard their children as “gifts“? Children are not literally gifts, or if they are, from God perhaps, then they are no more gifts than other positive things in life
42、. Yet we dont, in general, say that its wrong to attempt to shape lifes positive things by, for example, choosing a career, or a house, or a partner. Secondly, sex selection is not necessarily sexist. While there are no doubt some prospective parents who think that men are superior to women (or vice
43、 versa), for most the choice is just a preference. A pertinent example here is whats called family balancing where a family that already has three boys wants to add a girl to even things up. Finally, the fear that allowing sex selection here would open the floodgates elsewhere is unfounded. Consider
44、ing that sex selection in other countries is already happening on a grand scale anyway, despite the fact that the UK does not allow “social“ sex selection. Our “setting a good example“ by prohibiting sex selection does not seem to be making much difference. So, while I am not a sex selection enthusi
45、ast, and certainly dont think that it should be encouraged or paid for by the NHS (except to avoid sex-linked disease) the arguments for prohibiting it are not as strong as they may at first appear. There is real cost and harm attached to the ban: some people are distressed by not being able to have
46、 the family of their choice, while others are forced to turn to seeking treatment overseas. I believe that we should allow sex selection in the UK within the context of our carefully regulated reproductive medicine sector. 专业英语八级（作文）模拟试卷 74答案与解析 一、 PART V WRITING 1 【正确答案】 Should Euthanasia Be Made L
47、egal? Whether people with terminal illness can be put to death when they ask for it has been a pendent debate for decades. It is a complicated issue that involves a series of intertwined factors including human right, social ethics, professional conduct and the value of life. Supporters of euthanasi
48、a believe that those patients, who are suffering from the torture from the disease, should have the right to choose whether to live on or not Just like suicide, it should have been an autonomy right for all independent biological entities, and a legislation will help guarantee this right of choice b
49、ased on free will. However, opponents are more worried about the possible abuse of this choice, either from the doctor or from the family. As far as I am concerned, legalized euthanasia can be a good policy. I agree all the potential risks of doing this, but there are ways to counterbalance them. Provided there are reasonable institutional arrangement and scrutinized implementation of euthanasia, the advantages of legalizing it will overweight the disadvantages. Firstly, strict medical standards, regulation and monitoring should be applied to ensure that this
