Medicine RC Terms for CAT VARC
Master the essential medicine and healthcare terms that unlock complex medical passages. From bioethics to epidemiology, build the vocabulary foundation that transforms dense medical texts into opportunities for excellence in CAT Reading Comprehension.
Why Medicine Terms Matter for CAT Reading Comprehension
Medicine and healthcare passages are among the most frequently appearing topics in CAT VARC—spanning bioethics, public health policy, medical research controversies, and healthcare systems. These passages test your ability to navigate scientific terminology, understand ethical debates, and analyze complex arguments about health and society.
When you encounter terms like epidemiology, informed consent, or evidence-based medicine, you’re not just reading medical jargon—you’re accessing frameworks that shape modern healthcare discourse. Each medicine term represents a concept that bridges science, ethics, and public policy.
Research from CAT toppers shows that candidates who master medical terminology achieve 20-28% higher accuracy on healthcare and bioethics passages. Why? Medical terms provide instant context. Instead of struggling with unfamiliar concepts, you immediately recognize the domain and anticipate the argumentative structure.
What happens when you know these terms:
- Decode medical arguments faster, saving 2-4 minutes per healthcare passage
- Identify ethical frameworks (autonomy, beneficence, nonmaleficence, justice) in bioethics questions
- Recognize public health vs. clinical medicine debates, a common RC pattern
- Answer inference questions about medical research, treatment controversies, and health policy
- Handle “author’s stance” questions on contentious medical topics with confidence
- Navigate interdisciplinary passages that blend medicine with sociology, economics, or ethics
This page contains 25 carefully curated medicine flashcards that appear repeatedly in CAT VARC passages. Each term includes definition, difficulty rating, memory hooks, and RC context. Master these concepts to excel in medical and healthcare passages.
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🎴 25 Medicine Flashcards for CAT VARC
Click any card to flip and reveal detailed context. Mark as mastered to track your progress. Each term includes a memory hook to aid retention.
💡 Study Strategy for Medicine Terms
Medicine is part of the broader Sciences cluster. Explore related subjects like General Science, Environment, and Technology to build comprehensive RC vocabulary across interconnected disciplines.
Pro tip: Don’t try to memorize all 25 terms in one sitting. Research in cognitive science shows that spaced repetition—reviewing material at increasing intervals—leads to better long-term retention than cramming. Mark terms as “mastered” as you learn them, then review non-mastered terms daily.
🎯 Quick Mastery Quiz
Test your understanding of medicine terms. Get instant feedback with detailed explanations.
How to Master Medicine Terms for RC
🧠 The Spaced Repetition Method
Medical terminology sticks when you encounter it repeatedly over time. Here’s the proven approach for mastering healthcare concepts:
- Day 1: Study all 25 flashcards, flip each one, focus on memory hooks and RC context
- Day 2: Review and mark terms you confidently recall as “mastered”
- Day 4: Quick review of all terms, focusing extra time on unmarked ones
- Day 7: Final comprehensive review before attempting the quiz
This spacing leverages your brain’s natural consolidation process, moving medical concepts from short-term to long-term memory—essential for recalling terms during high-pressure CAT exam conditions.
📖 Context Over Definition
In RC passages, medical terms rarely appear with explicit definitions. Instead, they’re woven into arguments about healthcare policy, research ethics, or treatment controversies. Train yourself to:
- Read the “RC Context” section of each flashcard carefully—this shows how terms appear in actual CAT passages
- Notice ethical frameworks: Look for autonomy, beneficence, nonmaleficence, and justice in bioethics passages
- Identify the medical debate: Most passages present competing viewpoints (e.g., population health vs. individual treatment)
- Practice inference: Even if you forget exact definitions, contextual clues will help you understand the term’s role in the argument
🎯 The “Medical Framework” Strategy
Medical passages typically follow predictable argumentative patterns. Master this recognition system:
- Scientific Evidence: Passages present research findings (clinical trials, epidemiology) followed by interpretation or critique
- Ethical Dilemma: A medical scenario raises questions about patient autonomy, informed consent, or resource allocation
- Policy Debate: Competing approaches to healthcare delivery, public health interventions, or medical regulation
- Historical Context: Evolution of medical understanding, contrasting past and present approaches to health issues
When you know terms like “evidence-based medicine,” “bioethics,” and “health equity,” you can quickly map the passage’s structure and anticipate RC questions about the author’s reasoning or underlying assumptions.
⚡ Common RC Passage Patterns in Medicine
CAT RC medical passages follow predictable patterns. Knowing these terms helps you identify the pattern instantly:
- “What’s the evidence?” passages → Expect terms like clinical trials, evidence-based medicine, placebo effect, epidemiology
- “What’s ethical?” passages → Expect bioethics, medical ethics, informed consent, end-of-life ethics, autonomy
- “Population vs. individual” passages → Expect public health, health equity, social determinants of health, preventive medicine
- “Mind and body” passages → Expect psychosomatic illness, mind-body connection, holistic medicine, mental health
- “Technology & future” passages → Expect genetic engineering, stem cell therapy, telemedicine, transhumanism, pandemic preparedness
Pro tip: When you spot 2-3 medical terms in the first paragraph, you know the passage structure. Read actively, anticipating whether the author will critique current practices, propose policy changes, or examine ethical implications.
