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This test consists of 5 multiple choice questions, 5 short answer questions, and 10 short essay questions.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. Where did Sacks's accident occur?
(a) In the Swiss Alps.
(b) On a mountain in Norway.
(c) On a mountain in Finland.
(d) In the hills of Germany.

2. What analogy does Sacks use to describe his left leg's failure during therapy?
(a) A cliff with an impossibly smooth face.
(b) A city with deserted streets.
(c) A flat pasture with lazy cows.
(d) A car with an empty gas tank.

3. What was Luria's response to Sacks's story?
(a) Such effects are widely studied in the medical field.
(b) Fascinating but not completely useful to modern doctors.
(c) Such effects rarely ever occur.
(d) Such effects often happen but the stories are not told.

4. What did Sacks feel as he was being admitted to the hospital?
(a) That he was reaching the purity of non-being.
(b) That he was finally reaching a place of hope.
(c) That he was losing his humanity and individuality.
(d) That he was approaching the gallows.

5. Why was Sacks so happy that he could do fifty chin-ups?
(a) Only fifteen hours earlier, he had been delirious with fever.
(b) He did not have to get out of bed to exercise.
(c) He wanted to impress the nurse.
(d) If his torso were strong again, his legs would regain strength more quickly.

Short Answer Questions

1. What was the name of the surgeon who performed Sacks's knee surgery?

2. How long did it take Sacks to reach the final understanding of his various thoughts?

3. What question did Sacks want to ask the surgeon before surgery?

4. How did Sacks descend the mountain?

5. What other word is connoted by the word "hell"?

Short Essay Questions

1. How much time does Dr. Swan spend with Sacks prior to the operation? How does this foretell his interactions with Sacks following the operation?

2. How does Sacks describe the bull? How does this description show his change of heart from the time he read the warning sign?

3. What timeline does Sacks establish for the development of neurology? What is still lacking from this branch of science?

4. Chapter Two begins with the idea that Sacks's story was over. How might the readership have been different if he had actually ended the story here?

5. Sacks discovered, to his horror, that his mental and moral boundaries had shrunk to the limits of the hospital. What does this mean? How did this differ from his mindset before the accident?

6. How did Sacks treat the warning sign about the bull? What does this reveal about his attitude?

7. What meals does Sacks describe most from his time in the hospital? What do these meals say about his frame of mind at each time?

8. During the first night in the hospital whom did Sacks see in his dream? How did Sacks live to imitate this person?

9. What distinction does Freud make between types of paralyses? How did the distinction pave the way for a significantly narrow view of neurology?

10. How many patients with neurological disorders did Sacks study following his recovery? What does this number say about the people involved?

(see the answer keys)

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