Read the passage and mark the letter A, B, C or D on your answer sheet to indicate the best answer to each of the following questions from 1...

Read the passage and mark the letter A, B, C or D on your answer sheet to indicate the best answer to each of the following questions from 12 to 19.

        In an age of accelerating innovation, genetic engineering sits at the uneasy frontier between promise and peril. By isolating, recombining, and inserting genetic material, researchers can probe gene function, amplify expression, or remedy defects in target cells. The burgeoning toolkit often involves assembling a complete construct before shuttling it into a host. If the construct integrates properly, desired traits may emerge; if not, the experiment yields only cautionary data. Despite its technical finesse, the field remains publicly contested and ethically fraught.

        Laboratory and industrial uses are already tangible. Bacteria manufacture insulin and human growth hormone at scale; test mice model disease; crops are bred to repel insects or tolerate herbicides and reach markets. Plants and animals are engineered to bio-manufacture medicines – “biopharming.” In 2009 the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved a therapeutic antithrombin extracted from the milk of engineered goats, a milestone that normalized a once-unthinkable pipeline from barn to bedside. Such cases make the technology feel both quotidian and disquieting.

        As capabilities expand, so do moral conundrums. Professional codes forged for an earlier era now meet cases they cannot easily absorb. Doctors, for the first time in a long time, are actively seeking principled answers to novel quandaries that unsettle traditional rules. Questions about editing human embryos, commodifying tissues, and widening inequities press clinicians and ethicists into unfamiliar territory. The upshot has been a modern discourse on “medical ethics,” no longer optional seminar talk but a working grammar for daily decision-making.

        Debate is not new. Medieval and early-modern Muslim physicians translated, critiqued, and extended Greek medicine while weaving Islamic ethical precepts into practice. Ibn al-Nafis surveyed surgical duties; al-Ruhawi’s Adab al-Tabib codified professional etiquette, including strict patient confidentiality. In our century, shared dilemmas – abortion, human experimentation, and high-powered biotechnologies – recur across societies, even as cultures reason differently about them. The live question, still unresolved, is whether scientific inquiry should remain tightly leashed by religion and ethics or be granted wider experimental latitude.

(Adapted from Masarat: “Genetic Engineering”  –  overview, mechanisms, applications, and ethics)

Question 12. The word tangible in paragraph 1 is OPPOSITE in meaning to ______.

A. visible                B. concrete                        C. abstract                        D. physical

Question 13. Which of the following is TRUE according to paragraph 2?

A. The FDA first approved goat-derived insulin for diabetic patients in 2019.

B. Test mice are no longer used once crops become herbicide-tolerant.

C. Bacteria are employed to produce human growth hormone for medical use.

D. Biopharming refers exclusively to synthesizing vaccines inside bacterial plasmids.

Question 14. The word it in paragraph 1 refers to ______.

A. genetic engineering                                B. the complete construct

C. the host                                                D. genetic material

Question 15. Which of the following best paraphrases the underlined sentence in paragraph 3?

A. After a period of settled norms, doctors are urgently revisiting ethical guidelines to address emerging challenges.

B. For the first time recently, clinicians are confronting unprecedented dilemmas requiring fresh ethical frameworks.

C. Physicians now face morally complex scenarios that demand renewed engagement with foundational principles.

D. After years of routine practice, physicians are now proactively pursuing ethical solutions to disruptive new cases.

Question 16. The word conundrums in paragraph 3 can be best replaced by ______?

A. perplexing problems for which clear-cut answers are elusive despite rigorous ethical reasoning
B. everyday routines that clinicians perform automatically without reflection or supervisory oversight

C. administrative checklists that streamline paperwork across hospitals and reduce treatment waiting times

D. minor inconveniences that can be solved quickly through standard operating procedures and forms

Question 17. Which of the following is NOT mentioned in paragraph 2 as an application or outcome of genetic engineering?

A. designing gene drives to eliminate invasive species on islands through biased inheritance across generations

B. producing therapeutic proteins such as insulin or human growth hormone using engineered bacterial systems

C. cultivating insect-resistant or herbicide-tolerant crops that are commercialized and sold to consumers

D. generating pharmaceuticals in plants or animals so medicines can be made more cheaply via biopharming

Question 18. Which paragraph mentions a 2009 regulatory approval involving antithrombin from goat milk?

A. Paragraph 1        B. Paragraph 2                C. Paragraph 3                D. Paragraph 4

Question 19. Which paragraph mentions Islamic scholars integrating ethical principles into medical practice and confidentiality?

A. Paragraph 1        B. Paragraph 2                C. Paragraph 3                D. Paragraph 4