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This test consists of 15 multiple choice questions and 5 short answer questions.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. What does Gawande say he and his fellow doctors never touched on, in talking about Lazaroff’s condition with him?
(a) The reality of his disease.
(b) The side effects to chemotherapy.
(c) The likelihood the treatment would fail.
(d) The cost of the treatment.

2. What does Ivan Ilych die of?
(a) Tuberculosis.
(b) Cholera.
(c) Malnourishment.
(d) An unnamed disease.

3. What kind of system does Gawande compare human bodies to?
(a) Nuclear power plants.
(b) Kitchen appliances.
(c) Automobiles.
(d) Wind-up toys.

4. What made the Harry Truman Gawande describes a hero in his townspeople’s eyes?
(a) He defied the odds and survived a deadly cancer.
(b) He weathered out the eruption of Mt. Saint Helens.
(c) He saved his neighbors from the fallout when Mt. Saint Helens erupted.
(d) He used being-buried-by-a-volcano as a retirement plan.

5. What is Gawande’s relation to Alice Hobson?
(a) She is his daughter’s piano teacher.
(b) She is his wife’s grandmother.
(c) She is his old piano teacher.
(d) She is his adopted grandmother.

6. Where does Gawande say he witnessed the most hellish conditions of his life?
(a) A nursing home in the American South.
(b) A prison in Portugal.
(c) An elder home in India.
(d) An insane asylum in Belgium.

7. How many of the 100 people Mabel Nassau studied were able to support themselves?
(a) 27.
(b) 42.
(c) 9.
(d) 65.

8. What does Gawande say the nursing homes Wilson looked at were designed for?
(a) Efficiency.
(b) Warehousing the elderly.
(c) Control.
(d) Cost containment.

9. How old was Alice Hobson when she was widowed?
(a) 72.
(b) 88.
(c) 41.
(d) 56.

10. Where was the first assisted living facility founded?
(a) Massachusetts.
(b) Oregon.
(c) Michigan.
(d) California.

11. What arrangement did Felix have to make when he brought Bella back home from the nursing home?
(a) He had to return to practicing medicine to pay for her care.
(b) He had to have contractors make modifications of their home.
(c) He invited his daughters to live at home to help him.
(d) He hired an army of nurses and aides.

12. What does Gawande say Felix Silverstone’s wife found exasperating about being in a nursing home floor while her bones mended?
(a) Felix was no longer around to take care of her.
(b) The nurses did not comb her hair the way she preferred.
(c) The staff were unprofessional.
(d) The staff did not perform all the help she needed.

13. How did Alice Hobson lose her car?
(a) She forgot to make her car payments.
(b) She got in a small accident and lost her license.
(c) She left the keys in it and it was stolen.
(d) She parked it in the wrong parking lot.

14. What does Gawande say made Alice Hobson unhappy with her assisted living facility?
(a) The loss of autonomy.
(b) Being surrounded by old people.
(c) The rigid schedule.
(d) The smelly food.

15. When does Gawande say Lou Sanders became a widower?
(a) At 56.
(b) At 81.
(c) At 63.
(d) At 76.

Short Answer Questions

1. How does Gawande characterize the decline of health for people with “chronic illnesses—emphysema, liver disease, and congestive heart failure”?

2. In what way is Lou Sanders’ decision to move in with his daughter not successful?

3. What event does Gawande say sparked a national revolution in elder care?

4. What diagnosis did Lou Sanders get after he had a fall at age 88?

5. What does Lou Sanders’ daughter Shelley compare him to when he comes to live with her and her family?

(see the answer keys)

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