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

Multiple Choice Questions

1. What did Sacks find astonishing about his wound?
(a) The long recovery time.
(b) The inability of his doctors to understand him.
(c) The pain he felt during his whole recovery.
(d) The complexity of effects he experienced during recovery.

2. What does the word scotoma mean?
(a) The depression following surgery.
(b) Darkness of soul.
(c) Emptiness and images of emptiness.
(d) Being utterly alone in the world.

3. How long did Sacks think about his injury before he began writing about it?
(a) Ten years.
(b) Eight years.
(c) Four years.
(d) Six years.

4. What book of the Bible does Sacks quote at the beginning of Chapter Three?
(a) Ecclesiastes.
(b) Proverbs.
(c) Psalms.
(d) Job.

5. What is the title of Chapter One?
(a) The Beginning.
(b) The Fall.
(c) The Mountain.
(d) The Bull.

6. Who wrote the book which was the model for Sacks's own book?
(a) Hemingway.
(b) Nietzsche.
(c) Conrad.
(d) Luria.

7. What was the date when Sacks climbed the mountain?
(a) The 7th.
(b) The 23rd.
(c) The 18th.
(d) The 24th.

8. What name did Sacks give his windowless hospital room?
(a) Little Ease.
(b) The Tower.
(c) The Monad.
(d) Big Ease.

9. What book does Sacks model his own book after?
(a) The Man in the Shattered Hope.
(b) The Man with the Shattered Arm.
(c) The Woman with the Shattered Dreams.
(d) The Man with the Shattered World.

10. To what did Sacks's various thoughts and themes eventually lead in the end?
(a) A deeper understanding of the patient-doctor relationship.
(b) A reaffirmation of modern neurological medicin.
(c) A personal, religious faith.
(d) A critique of modern neurological medicine.

11. What question did Sacks want to ask the surgeon before surgery?
(a) Whether he could have a spinal anesthesia.
(b) Whether he could have someone photograph the surgery.
(c) Whether he could have a general anesthesia.
(d) Whether he could drink a little water first.

12. Why did Sacks have strong legs?
(a) He had worked out at the gym for many years.
(b) He swam regularly.
(c) He ran marathons.
(d) He was a veteran hiker.

13. According to Sacks, why does he not end his story after his rescue?
(a) The book was not long enough to stop.
(b) The accident is closely connected to the story of recovery.
(c) The focus of the book is the recovery, not the accident.
(d) He had so many ideas left to convey.

14. Where did Sacks's accident occur?
(a) On a mountain in Norway.
(b) On a mountain in Finland.
(c) In the Swiss Alps.
(d) In the hills of Germany.

15. What language was the sign "BEWARE OF THE BULL!" written in?
(a) German.
(b) English.
(c) French.
(d) Norwegian.

Short Answer Questions

1. What does Sacks think of when he remembers the Biblical words, "To everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven. A time to be born, and a time or die; a time . . ." (pg 26)?

2. When Sacks began to write to Luria, where did Luria live?

3. What word does Sacks use most to describe the bull?

4. What would happen if Sacks were not found by nightfall?

5. How does Sacks describe the six-hour ambulance ride to the next hospital?

(see the answer keys)

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