The core of modern doctoring is diagnosis, treatment and prognosis. Most medical schools emphasize little else. Western doctors have been analyzing the wheezes and pains of their patients since the 17th century to identify the underlying disease of the cause of complaints. They did it well and good diagnosis became the hallmark of a good physician. They were less strong on treatment. But when sulphonamides were discovered in 1935 to treat certain bacterial infections, doctors found themselves with powerful new tools. The area of modern medicine was born. Today there is a ever-burgeoning array of complex diagnostic tests, and of pharmaceutical and surgical methods of treatment. Yet what impact has all this had on health?
Most observers ascribe recent improvements in health in rich countries to better living standards and changes in lifestyle. The World Health Organization cites the wide differences in health between Western and Eastern Europe. The two areas have similar pattern of diseases: heart disease, senile dementia, arthritis and cancer are the most common cause of sickness and death. Between 1947 and 1964, both parts of Europe saw general health improve, with the arrival of cleaner water, better sanitation and domestic refrigerators. Since the mid 1960s, however, E. European countries, notable Poland and Hungary, have seen mortality rates rise and life expectancy fall. Why? The WHO ascribes the divergence to differences in lifestyle-diet, smoking habits, alcohol, a sedentary way of life (factors associated with chronic and degenerative diseases) rather than differences in access in modern medical care.
In contrast, the huge sum now spent in the same of medical progress produce only marginal improvements in health. America devotes nearly 12% of its GNP to high technology medicine, more than any other developed country. Yet, overall, Americans die younger, lose more babies and are at least as likely to suffer from chronic diseases. Some medical procedures demonstrably do work: mending broken bones, the removable of cataracts, drugs for ulcers, vaccination, aspirin for headaches, antibiotics for bacterial infections, techniques that save new born babies, some organ transplant, yet the evidence is scant for many other common treatments. The coronary bypass, a common surgical technique, is usually to overcome the obstruction caused by a blood clot in arteries leading to the heart. Deprived of oxygen, tissues in the heart might otherwise die. Yet, according to a 1988 study conducted in Europe, coronary bypass surgery is beneficial only in the short term. A bypass patient who dies within five years has probably lasted longer than if he had simply taken drugs. But among those who get to or past five years, the drug-takers live longer than those who have surgery.
An American study completed in 1988 concluded that removing tissue from the prostate gland after the appearance of (non-cancerous) growth, but before the growths can do much damage, does not prolong life expectancy. Yet the operation was performed regularly and cost Medicare, the federally– subsidized system for the elderly, over $1 billion a year. Though they have to go through extensive clinical trials, it is not always clear that drugs provide health benefits. According to Dr. Louise Russell, a professor of economics at Rutgers University, in New Jersey, although anti–cholesterol drugs have been shown in clinical trials to reduce the incidence of deaths due to coronary heart disease, in ordinary life there is no evidence that extended the individual taker’s life expectancy. Medical practice varies widely from one country to another. Each year in America about 60 of every 100,000 people have a coronary by-pass; in Britain about six Anti-diabetic drugs are far more commonly used in some European countries than in others. One woman in five, in Britain, has a hysterectomy (removal of the womb) at some time during her life; In America and Denmark, seven out of ten do so. Why? If coronary heart problems were far commoner in America than Britain, or diabetes in one part of Europe than another, such differences would be justified. But that is not so. Nor do American and Danish women become evidently healthier than British ones. It is the medical practice, not the pattern of illness or the outcome, that differs. Perhaps American patients expect their doctors to “do something” more urgently than British ones? Perhaps American doctors are readier to comply? Certainly the American medical fraternity grows richer as a result. No one else seems to have gained through such practices.
To add injury to insult, modern medical procedures may not be just of questionable worth but sometimes dangerous. Virtually all drugs have some adverse side-effects on some people. No surgical procedure is without risk. Treatments that prolong life can also promote sickness: the heart attack victim may be saved but survive disabled.
Attempts have been made to sort out this tangle. The “outcomes movement” born in America during the past decade, aims to lessen the use of inappropriate drugs and pointless surgery by reaching some medical consensus–which drug to give? whether to operate or medicate?–through better assessment of the outcome of treatments.
Ordinary clinical trials measure the safety and immediate efficacy of products or procedures. The outcomes enthusiasts try to measure and evaluate far wider consequences. Do patients actually feel better? What is the impact on life expectancy and other health statistics? And instead of relying on results from just a few thousand patients, the effect of treating tens of thousands are studied retrospectively. As an example of what this can turn up, the adverse side-effects associated with Opren, an anti-arthritis drug, were not spotted until it was widely used.
Yet Dr. Arnold Epstein, of the Harvard Medical School, argues that, worthy as it may be, the outcomes movement is likely to have only a modest impact on medical practice. Effectiveness can be difficult to measure: patients can vary widely in their responses. In some, a given drug may relieve pain, in others not: is highly subjective. Many medical controversies will be hard to resolve because of data conflict. And what of the promised heart-disease or cancer cures? Scientists accept that they are unlikely to find an answer to cancer, heart disease or degenerative brain illness for a long while yet. These diseases appear to be highly complex, triggered when a number of bodily functions go awry. No one pill or surgical procedure is likely to be the panacea. The doctors probably would do better looking at the patient’s diet and lifestyle before he becomes ill than giving him six pills for the six different bodily failure that are causing the illness once he has got it. Nonetheless modern medicine remains entrenched. It is easier to pop pills than change a lifetime’ habits. And there is always the hope of some new miracle cure–or some individual miracle.
Computer technology has helped produce cameras so sensitive that they can detect the egg in the womb, to be extracted for test tube fertilization. Bio-materials have created an artificial heart that is expected to increase life expectancy among those fitted with one by an average of 54 months. Bio-technology has produced expensive new drugs for the treatment of cancer. Some have proved life-savers against some rare cancers; none has yet had a substantial impact on overall death rates due to cancer.
These innovations have vastly increased the demand and expectations of health care and pushed medical bills even higher– not lower, as was once hoped. Inevitably, governments, employers and insurers who finance health care have rebelled over the past decade against its astronomic costs, and have introduced budgets and rationing to curb them.
Just as inevitably, this limits access to health care: rich people get it more easily than poor ones. Some proposed solutions would mean no essential change, just better management of the current system. But others, mostly from American academics, go further, aiming to reduce the emphasis on modern medicine and its advance. Their trust is two headed: (i) prevention is better– and might be cheaper– than cure; and (ii) if you want high-tech, high-cost medicine, you (or your insurers, but not the public) must pay for it, especially when its value is uncertain.
Thus the finance of health-care systems, private or public, could be skewed to favour prevention rather than cure. Doctors would be reimbursed for preventive practices, whilst curative measures would be severely rationed. Today the skew is all the other way: Governments or insurers pay doctors to diagnose disease and prescribe treatment, but not to give advise on smoking or diet.
Most of the main chronic diseases are man-made. By reducing environmental pollution, screening for and treating biological risk indicators such as high blood pressure, providing vaccination and other such measures– above all, by changing people’s own behavior within decades the incidence of these diseases could be much reduced. Governments could help by imposing ferocious “Sin taxes” on unhealthy products such as cigarettes, alcohol, maybe even fatty foods, to discourage consumption.
The trouble is that nobody knows precisely which changes– apart from stopping smoking are really worth putting into effect, let alone how. It is clear that people whose blood pressure is brought down have a brighter future than if it stayed high; It is not clear that cholesterol screening and treatment are similarly valuable. Today’s view of what constitutes a good diet may be judged wrong tomorrow.
Much must change before any of these “caring” rather than “cure” schemes will get beyond the academic drawing-board. Nobody has yet been able to assemble a coherent preventive programme. Those countries that treat medicine as a social cost have been wary of moves to restrict public use of advanced and / or costly medical procedures, while leaving the rich to buy what they like. They fear that this would simply reduce ordinary people with third-class medicine.
In any case, before fundamental change can come, society will have to recognize that modern medicine is an imprecise science that does not always work; and that questions of how much to spend on it, and how, should not be determined almost incidentally, by doctor’s medical preferences.
The discovery of sulphonamides
Show Hint
- helped the doctors to diagnose better.
- led to better treatment of some bacterial infections
- eventually led to pharmaceutical and surgical methods of treatment.
- None of the above.
The Correct Option is B
Solution and Explanation
The current medical practice as carried out in America benefits mostly the
Show Hint
- doctors
- rich
- biotechnology companies
- None of the above
The Correct Option is B
Solution and Explanation
In some European countries anti-diabetic drugs are far more commonly used than others because
Show Hint
- the drugs are fairly easy to take.
- more people in those countries suffer from diabetes than in others.
- medical practice in different countries varies.
- the sedentary way of life which marks their lifestyle results in more people becoming diabetic
The Correct Option is C
Solution and Explanation
Which of the following statements is false?
Show Hint
- Coronary by-pass operation is entirely ineffective.
- Drug taking is sometimes better than undergoing coronary by-pass surgery.
- Removing tissue from prostate gland after non-cancerous growths appear is a risky operation.
- The American medicare is billed about a billion dollars annually for prostrate operations.
The Correct Option is A
Solution and Explanation
Which of the following measures if undertaken under ‘Care rather than Cure’ movement could prove to be controversial?
Show Hint
- ‘Sin’ taxes on harmful substances such as tobacco and alcohol.
- Screening for high blood pressure.
- Providing vaccinations.
- Cholesterol screening.
The Correct Option is A
Solution and Explanation
The outcomes movement could make a significant impact on medical practice if only
Show Hint
- the efficacy of all drugs could be tested fast.
- the results from just a few thousands patients could be relied on.
- the patient had responded uniformly to drugs and medical procedure.
- pain could be easily relieved.
The Correct Option is C
Solution and Explanation
Modern cure are known to be expensive because
Show Hint
- bio-material are expensive.
- employing biotechnological process in making medicines is an expensive process.
- there is a huge demand for them but the supply is limited.
- None of these.
The Correct Option is B
Solution and Explanation
The main objection to ‘care rather cure’ approach is that it
Show Hint
- might leave the poor to fend for themselves.
- will lead to confusion as far as the choice of medical technique to be followed.
- is not possible to put together coherent preventive programme.
- will lead to the neglect to curative techniques.
The Correct Option is A
Solution and Explanation
Top Questions on Reading Comprehension
- Shown below are letters ‘e’ taken from four popular logos, arranged in a sequence. Which of the options is the correct sequence?
- UCEED - 2026
- English Language Comprehension
- Reading Comprehension
- Shown below are four options, each showing consecutive frames representing the movement of a pendulum of an old-style wall clock for an animation movie. Which is the correct option?
- UCEED - 2026
- English Language Comprehension
- Reading Comprehension
- Acrucial moderating factor in how people experience comparisons is self-esteem. Individuals with high self-esteem are more likely to interpret upward comparison as informative rather than threatening. They are more resilient in the face of others’ success and more likely to believe they can reach their own goals. In contrast, people with low self-esteem are more prone to interpret comparison as judgment, reinforcing negative self-views and triggering feelings of inadequacy.
This dynamic creates a self-reinforcing loop. People with high self-esteem are less vulnerable to upward comparison, which intensifies those doubts. Those with a secure sense of self are more likely to use comparison as a learning tool. The same external stimulus—a colleague’s achievements, a friend’s popularity—can have radically different effects depending on internal stability.
Self-esteem also influences how people choose their comparison targets. Research has found that individuals often engage in “selective comparison,” seeking out those who confirm their existing beliefs about themselves. This can become a subtle form of self-sabotage. Someone who feels unworthy may subconsciously seek out targets that reinforce that sense, perpetuating a narrative of inferiority. One of the most promising antidotes to social comparison is temporal comparison—evaluating oneself not against others, but against one’s own past. This method has been shown to increase motivation and satisfaction, especially when individuals can see concrete progress. Temporal comparison activates the same reward circuits as social comparison but avoids the threat systems associated with social ranking. It also reinforces agency: individuals focus on what they can control and improve rather than what others control. In therapeutic and coaching settings, temporal comparison is used to help clients build self-efficacy and track growth over time.
Moreover, people who focus on self-improvement rather than social dominance are less likely to fall into cycles of envy or self-pity. They can still use others as inspiration, but they do so without attaching their self-worth to the outcome. This is not to say they never compare—but that they focus on learning, rather than judgment. The most skilful approach to comparison may lie in eliminating it, but in reframing it as feedback. When we interpret comparison as information rather than a verdict, we can ask, “What can I learn from this?” This shift turns comparison into a growth tool. Teachers mentor their students, not as rivals. Psychologists emphasize that the key variable here is mindset.
A fixed mindset sees comparison as a threat. If someone else is better, it means we are worse. A growth mindset sees comparison as a map. If someone else has reached a certain level, it means the path exists. This reframing is not just a cognitive trick. It changes the emotional tone of comparison, making it more likely to inspire than to wound. Reframing also requires emotional regulation—the ability to notice an initial pang of envy or shame without reacting impulsively. With practice, individuals can learn to pause, reflect, and reinterpret their emotional responses. Over time, this builds resilience and self-trust, allowing comparison to become a learning tool rather than a cage.- XAT - 2026
- Verbal and Logical Ability
- Reading Comprehension
When people who are talking don’t share the same culture, knowledge, values, and assumptions, mutual understanding can be especially difficult. Such understanding is possible through the negotiation of meaning. To negotiate meaning with someone, you have to become aware of and respect both the differences in your backgrounds and when these differences are important. You need enough diversity of cultural and personal experience to be aware that divergent world views exist and what they might be like. You also need the flexibility in world view, and a generous tolerance for mistakes, as well as a talent for finding the right metaphor to communicate the relevant parts of unshared experiences or to highlight the shared experiences while demphasizing the others. Metaphorical imagination is a crucial skill in creating rapport and in communicating the nature of unshared experience. This skill consists, in large measure, of the ability to bend your world view and adjust the way you categorize your experiences. Problems of mutual understanding are not exotic; they arise in all extended conversations where understanding is important.
When it really counts, meaning is almost never communicated according to the CONDUIT metaphor, that is, where one person transmits a fixed, clear proposition to another by means of expressions in a common language, where both parties have all the relevant common knowledge, assumptions, values, etc. When the chips are down, meaning is negotiated: you slowly figure out what you have in common, what it is safe to talk about, how you can communicate unshared experience or create a shared vision. With enough flexibility in bending your world view and with luck and charity, you may achieve some mutual understanding.
Communication theories based on the CONDUIT metaphor turn from the pathetic to the evil when they are applied indiscriminately on a large scale, say, in government surveillance or computerized files. There, what is most crucial for real understanding is almost never included, and it is assumed that the words in the file have meaning in themselves—disembodied, objective, understandable meaning. When a society lives by the CONDUITmetaphor on a large scale, misunderstanding, persecution, and much worse are the likely products.- XAT - 2026
- Verbal and Logical Ability
- Reading Comprehension
Later, I realized that reviewing the history of nuclear physics served another purpose as well: It gave the lie to the naive belief that the physicists could have come together when nuclear fission was discovered (in Nazi Germany!) and agreed to keep the discovery a secret, thereby sparing humanity such a burden. No. Given the development of nuclear physics up to 1938, development that physicists throughout the world pursued in all innocence of any intention of finding the engine of a new weapon of mass destruction—only one of them, the remarkable Hungarian physicist Leo Szilard, took that possibility seriously—the discovery of nuclear fission was inevitable. To stop it, you would have had to stop physics. If German scientists hadn’t made the discovery when they did, French, American, Russian, Italian, or Danish scientists would have done so, almost certainly within days or weeks. They were all working at the same cutting edge, trying to understand the strange results of a simple experiment bombarding uranium with neutrons. Here was no Faustian bargain, as movie directors and other naifs still find it intellectually challenging to imagine. Here was no evil machinery that the noble scientists might hide from the problems and the generals. To the contrary, there was a high insight into how the world works, an energetic reaction, older than the earth, that science had finally devised the instruments and arrangements to coart forth. “Make it seem inevitable,” Louis Pasteur used to advise his students when they prepared to write up their discoveries. But it was. To wish that it might have been ignored or suppressed is barbarous. “Knowledge,” Niels Bohr once noted, “is itself the basis for civilization.” You cannot have the one without the other; the one depends upon the other. Nor can you have only benevolent knowledge; the scientific method doesn’t filter for benevolence. Knowledge has consequences, not always intended, not always comfortable, but always welcome. The earth revolves around the sun, not the sun around the earth. “It is a profound and necessary truth,” Robert Oppenheimer would say, “that the deep things in science are not found because they are useful; they are found because it was possible to find them.”
...Bohr proposed once that the goal of science is not universal truth. Rather, he argued, the modest but relentless goal of science is “the gradual removal of prejudices.” The discovery that the earth revolves around the sun has gradually removed the prejudice that the earth is the center of the universe. The discovery of microbes is gradually removing the prejudice that disease is a punishment from God. The discovery of evolution is gradually removing the prejudice that Homo sapiens is a separate and special creation.- XAT - 2026
- Verbal and Logical Ability
- Reading Comprehension
Questions Asked in CAT exam
- The passage given below is followed by four summaries. Choose the option that best captures the essence of the passage.
In the dynamic realm of creativity, artists often find themselves at the crossroads between drawing inspiration from diverse cultures and inadvertently crossing into the territory of cultural appropriation. Inspiration is the lifeblood of creativity, driving artists to create works that resonate across borders. In a globalized era of the modern world, artists draw from a vast array of cultural influences. When approached respectfully, inspiration becomes a bridge, fostering understanding and appreciation of cultural diversity. However, the line between inspiration and cultural appropriation can be thin and easily blurred.
Cultural appropriation occurs when elements from a particular culture are borrowed without proper understanding, respect, or acknowledgment. This leads to the commodification of sacred symbols, the reinforcement of stereotypes, and the erasure of the cultural context from which these elements originated. It is essential to recognize that the impact of cultural appropriation extends beyond the realm of artistic expression, influencing societal perceptions and perpetuating power imbalances.- CAT - 2025
- Para Summary
- The number of distinct integers $n$ for which $\log_{\left(\frac14\right)}(n^2 - 7n + 11)>0$ is:
- CAT - 2025
- Linear Inequalities
- In the set of consecutive odd numbers $\{1, 3, 5, \ldots, 57\}$, there is a number $k$ such that the sum of all the elements less than $k$ is equal to the sum of all the elements greater than $k$. Then, $k$ equals?
- CAT - 2025
- Number Systems
- The number of distinct pairs of integers $(x, y)$ satisfying the inequalities $x>y \ge 3$ and $x + y<14$ is:
- CAT - 2025
- Number Systems
For any natural number $k$, let $a_k = 3^k$. The smallest natural number $m$ for which \[ (a_1)^1 \times (a_2)^2 \times \dots \times (a_{20})^{20} \;<\; a_{21} \times a_{22} \times \dots \times a_{20+m} \] is:
- CAT - 2025
- Linear Inequalities