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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. What factor correlated with the greatest inaccuracies when doctors estimated their patients’ survival times?

2. How does Gawande characterize his faith in Hinduism?

3. What did Gawande’s father make Gawande promise him?

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

5. How does Gawande characterize the phase of cultural development we are in, with regard to care for the sick and dying?

Short Essay Questions

1. What does Gawande say goes into a “comfort pack” (162)?

2. How does Gawande say that end-of-life care costs affect the American medical system?

3. What are the three stages Gawande describes in medical development countries go through?

4. How does Gawande describe what the real job of people in medicine should be?

5. How does Gawande characterize the ceremony for disposing of his father’s ashes?

6. What stance does Gawande take on the concept of “assisted suicide” (243)?

7. How does Gawande characterize the work that remains to be done in medicine?

8. How does Gawande characterize his faith in his people’s religion, and how does he describe his participation in the Hindu ritual for dispersing his father’s remains?

9. How does Gawande say the western medical model is spreading throughout the world?

10. What are the advantages and disadvantages of Gawande ending on a personal note?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Think about how you would like your own life to end. What decisions can you make today that will make “a good death” a likely outcome of your decisions? In what ways does our culture encourage this kind of thinking? In what ways does it distract from it? Where are the “good life” and “good death” valued?

Essay Topic 2

Which character does Gawande connect you with most intensely? Why? What part of the story did you connect with? Which individuals were you least connected to, or even put off by? How does Gawande guide your sympathies in his storytelling?

Essay Topic 3

What is the reform you would suggest or support, to change the nature of elder care in our culture? What problem would your reform address, and what are the potential complications it would create? Who would be in favor of your reform, and who would not? Why?

(see the answer keys)

This section contains 1,160 words (approx. 4 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample