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This test consists of 5 short answer questions, 10 short essay questions, and 1 (of 3) essay topics.

Short Answer Questions

1. After a temporary cast was put on the leg, what dream did Sacks have?

2. How is the material in the last chapter presented?

3. What book does Sacks plan to write in the future?

4. The night before the operation, Sacks called up his family and friends. What did he tell them could happen if he were to die during the operation?

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

Short Essay Questions

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

2. Sacks notes that "body-image is dynamic and plastic" (Afterword, pg 194). What does this mean?

3. How does Sacks describe his first few steps? How might this description be applied to another time in life, one which has never been described?

4. How does the quote at the beginning of Chapter Four compare to Sacks's own words which begin the chapter?

5. Who visited Sacks the evening after his operation? Why does he not mention these people again?

6. What is anosognosis? What problem does this state present to medical researchers?

7. While Sacks was lying in his small hospital room, what happened to his eyes? How was this transformation similar to his leg's injury?

8. When Sacks was in the hospital, why did he hesitate to write about his experience? What mindset change enabled him to write?

9. The night before his cast was taken off, Sacks repeatedly dreamed a nightmare. What was this nightmare? How did it reveal the conflict in his mind?

10. Sacks says that simply his ability to stand changed the world and his place in it. How did this happen?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

What was Sacks's opinion of his leg while it was in the cast? Why did he have this opinion? Given what he says about his second injury some ten years later, how might he have changed this errant perception of his left leg in a cast?

Essay Topic 2

Sacks says that during his descent from the mountain, his awkward way of moving became natural (Chapter One, pg 10). He stopped thinking about it as the action became automatic. In what ways is this phenomenon exhibited throughout the book?

Essay Topic 3

What role does sight play in Sacks's story? When is his sight best and worst? What affects his sight? How do his eyes serve as symbols of his leg's injury and recovery?

(see the answer keys)

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