Reading comp PrepTest 118 · Section 2 · Question 13

Topic: Social Science

Paragraph 1.1 (Lines 1-12)

• Paragraph note
  • Background
• Views, minor Meta-Structures, and the author's attitude
  • Hippocratic Oath - Defines medical morality, has seemed impervious to criticism

Paragraph 1.2 (Lines 13-33)

• Paragraph note
  • Critics against Hippocratic Oath
• Views, minor Meta-Structures, and the author's attitude
  • List of criticisms:
    • 1) Outdated
    • 2) Authoritarian doctors, hurt autonomy and privacy of patient
    • 3) Only individual patient, not overall healthcare system
    • 4) Misses some stuff (human testing, relationship to other healthcare pros)
    • 5) Historical - Might not be by Hippocrates; might not have been accepted

Paragraph 2

• Paragraph note
  • Author on argument of Critics; Author recommends keeping Oath in some form
• Views, minor Meta-Structures, and the author's attitude
  • On Issue #5 - Dismiss it - History doesn’t matter as to whether it’s good
  • On other issues, patients need to know doctors are acting in their interest
  • Author - Hippocratic Oath should retain core value of beneficence, with revision/supplementation/interpretation at peripher
  • Example - “Cutting for stone” updated to allow surgery now that it’s safer

Main Point: Despite recent criticisms against the Hippocratic Oath, its core value of beneficence should be retained, with some revisions, supplementation, and modern interpretation on its periphery.

Line 13 - A list of criticisms is started (each element is important)

Lines 34-36 - The Author responds to one criticism

Lines 47-52 - The Author’s opinion on what “should” be done with the Hippocratic Oath (main point)

Defense from Critics - This passage falls into a common Meta-Structure, where the Author presents the arguments of Critics against a certain idea and then defends that idea against the Critics. While it’s more common in a Humanities passage that presents criticism of an artist or movement, it can show up concerning other topics, as we see here. The Author spends most of Paragraph 1 bringing up a number of criticisms (5 by our count) of the Hippocratic Oath before spending Paragraph 2 defending the Oath from that criticism. When a passage falls into this Meta-Structure, the main point is either the Author’s central disagreement with the Critics or the Author’s opinion on the central topic, if she states one. Here, she does state an opinion on the Hippocratic Oath - that the “core value of beneficence...should be retained,” with some adaptations at its periphery (Lines 47-52) - so that view should make up the main point, as we stated it above.

List - The Author lists a series of criticisms leveled against the Hippocratic Oath in Paragraph 1, and that takes up a lot of space in the passage. As such, and since it serves as both a separate viewpoint and a central part of the Defense from Critics Meta-Structure, we should expect some questions about this list.

Example - A limited example is raised at the end of the passage to show the type of “update” that the Author believes should be done on the Hippocratic Oath to modernize it.

Two last thoughts.

First, we split up Paragraph 1 into two parts so that we could more easily digest each section. Lines 1-12 don’t have much content that we expect questions to show up from as it’s just background, but the second half of Paragraph 1 features a list of criticisms leveled against the central topic, and so we want to be sure that we’re digesting that as a unified whole.

Second, this passage has a very clear statement of the Author’s main point - it’s an opinion on what “should” be done about the main topic (Lines 47-52). When you have such a clear statement of the Author’s view, you definitely want to focus on it as you work through the questions.