<p>I took the 2005-2006 practice booklet test, but I don't understand some of the answers.</p>
<p>Here's the passage:
This passage is from the preface to a 1997 book by<br>
a United States journalist detailing a disagreement<br>
between doctors and family members about a child’s
medical treatment at a hospital in California. </p>
<p>Under my desk I keep a large carton of cassette tapes.
Though they have all been transcribed, I still like to listen
to them from time to time.
Some are quiet and easily understood. They are filled
with the voices of American doctors, interrupted occasion- 5
ally by the clink of a coffee cup or beep of a pager. The<br>
rest—more than half of them—are very noisy. They are
filled with the voices of the Lees family, Hmong refugees
from Laos who came to the United States in 1980. Against
a background of babies crying, children playing, doors 10
slamming, dishes clattering, a television yammering, and an
air conditioner wheezing, I can hear the mother’s voice, by
turns breathy, nasal, gargly, or humlike as it slides up and
down the Hmong language’s eight tones; the father’s voice,
louder, slower, more vehement; and my interpreter’s voice, 15
mediating in Hmong and English, low and deferential in
each. The hubbub summons sense-memories: the coolness
of the red metal folding chair, reserved for guests, that was
always set up when I arrived in the apartment; the shadows
cast by the amulet that hung from the ceiling and swung in 20
the breeze on its length of grocer’s twine; the tastes of
Hmong food.
I sat on the Lees’ red chair for the first time on<br>
May 19, 1988. Earlier that spring I had come to Merced,
California, because I had heard that there were some 25
misunderstandings at the county hospital between its
Hmong patients and medical staff. One doctor called them
“collisions,” which made it sound as if two different kinds
of people had rammed into each other, head on, to the
accompaniment of squealing brakes and breaking glass. 30
As it turned out, the encounters were messy but rarely
frontal. Both sides were wounded, but neither side seemed
to know what had hit it or how to avoid another crash.
I have always felt that the action most worth watching
occurs not at the center of things but where edges meet. 35
I like shorelines, weather fronts, international borders.
These places have interesting frictions and incongruities,
and often, if you stand at the point of tangency, you can<br>
see both sides better than if you were in the middle of either
one. This is especially true when the apposition is cultural. 40
When I first came to Merced, I hoped that the culture of
American medicine, about which I knew a little, and the
culture of the Hmong, about which I knew nothing, would
somehow illuminate each other if I could position myself
between the two and manage not to get caught in the cross- 45
fire. But after getting to know the Lees family and their<br>
daughter’s doctors and realizing how hard it was to blame
anyone, I stopped analyzing the situation in such linear<br>
terms. Now, when I play the tapes late at night, I imagine
what they would sound like if I could splice them together, 50
so the voices of the Hmong and those of the American
doctors could be heard on a single tape, speaking a
common language. </p>
<p>Here's the question:
13. According to lines 41-46 (“When I . . . crossfire”), the author’s initial goal was to
(A) consider the perspectives of both the American
doctors and the Lees family to see what insights
might develop
(B) serve as a counselor to the county hospital’s
Hmong patients in order to ease their anxieties
(C) work out a compromise between the American
doctors and the Lees family
(D) acquire a greater knowledge of how the American
medical culture serves patients
(E) try to reduce the misunderstandings between the
American doctors and the Lees family and
promote good will </p>
<p>The answer booklet says that the answer is A, but I don't understand why.</p>
<p>Thanks in advance!</p>