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

Multiple Choice Questions

1. What functions are affected by this first shrinking of the brain?
(a) Language.
(b) Planning.
(c) Abstract thinking.
(d) Judgment.

2. What system did the U.S. join Europe in implementing in 1935?
(a) Social Security.
(b) The New Deal.
(c) Medicare.
(d) Medicaid.

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

4. What does Gawande say he felt about the dead people who showed up in his dreams?
(a) That he had killed them.
(b) That he had betrayed them.
(c) That they had come to kill him.
(d) That he was responsible for their souls.

5. When did Keren Wilson open her first assisted living facility?
(a) 1968.
(b) 1976.
(c) 1983.
(d) 1991.

6. How does Gawande characterize the plot of a person’s health for most of history?
(a) A series of dips followed by recoveries that approach the horizontal axis of death.
(b) A series of minor decreases in a slow decline toward death.
(c) A high line that ends abruptly.
(d) A high line that runs flat then falls quickly.

7. What does Gawande say he and his fellow doctors hoped to do for Joseph Lazaroff?
(a) Provide an easy death.
(b) Demonstrate heroism in trying to save his life.
(c) Manage his condition.
(d) Cure him.

8. How does Gawande characterize the corpse he was given to work with, his first semester of medical school?
(a) Leathery.
(b) Juicy.
(c) Stringy.
(d) Tough.

9. What was Gawande’s father’s profession?
(a) Urologist.
(b) Executive.
(c) Teacher.
(d) Engineer.

10. What does Gawande say is the greatest threat elderly people face?
(a) Blindness.
(b) Heart attacks.
(c) Falling.
(d) Choking.

11. How does Gawande characterize the “newest view” about why we age (32)?
(a) Aging is environmentally determined.
(b) Aging is genetically programmed.
(c) Aging is a sum of wear and tear.
(d) Aging is based on economic class.

12. What does Gawande say he tried to impress on Lazaroff?
(a) The risks of surgery.
(b) The likelihood the treatment would fail.
(c) The inevitability of death.
(d) The chance of paralysis after surgery.

13. How does Gawande characterize both Lazaroff and the doctors?
(a) Faithful.
(b) Miserable.
(c) Desperate.
(d) Delusional.

14. When does Gawande say he started to experience dead people?
(a) As a young child.
(b) In visits to his father’s village.
(c) In college.
(d) In medical school.

15. What does Gawande say modernization replaced the veneration of family with?
(a) Veneration of the independent self.
(b) Veneration of prosperity.
(c) Veneration of cultural traditions.
(d) Veneration of religious figures.

Short Answer Questions

1. What arrangement did Felix have to make when he brought Bella back home from the nursing home?

2. What does Gawande say is the biggest difference between how people age today and how they used to age?

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

4. What does Gawande say Laura Carstensen found in terms of people’s values in life?

5. How does Gawande say Philip Roth characterizes old age?

(see the answer keys)

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