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This quiz consists of 5 multiple choice and 5 short answer questions through Epilogue.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. What view does Gawande ultimately take, on the question of why we age?
(a) Things break down.
(b) Things shut down.
(c) Things are not well cared for.
(d) Things are degraded.

2. How does Gawande characterize the phase of cultural development we are in, with regard to care for the sick and dying?
(a) More medicalized.
(b) More institutional.
(c) Transitional.
(d) More spiritualized.

3. What did Gawande do with the herbs and medicine and morsels of food he took with him into the river?
(a) Offer them to the dead.
(b) Pray over them.
(c) Mix them with his father’s ashes.
(d) Trail them after the boat.

4. How does Gawande characterize the new developments in medicine, in talking about the case of Lazaroff?
(a) Torture.
(b) Cruelty.
(c) Blind groping
(d) Gambling.

5. What does Gawande say is the problem with courage?
(a) It can be manifested in opposite ways, in different circumstances.
(b) It is always open for interpretation.
(c) It is hard to tell what the wide course is.
(d) It depends on your information-gathering skills.

Short Answer Questions

1. What was the average number of children per family in the mid-1800s, and what was it by 1900?

2. Whose story does Gawande say is “going global” (192)?

3. What does Gawande say is most important about the end of Jewel Douglas’ story?

4. What does Jewel Douglas want Gawande to avoid in his operation?

5. Where does Gawande say Lou Sanders had grown up?

(see the answer key)

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