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

Multiple Choice Questions

1. According to Sacks, what was "the only proper posture of the soul at this time" (Chapter Three, pg 113)?
(a) Action and prayer.
(b) Passivity and patience.
(c) Patience.
(d) Action.

2. What was the name of the convalescent home where Sacks recovered?
(a) Hampstead.
(b) Kenwood.
(c) Hampstead Heath.
(d) Kenmoore.

3. How has Sacks always liked to think of himself?
(a) As an inventor.
(b) As a humanitarian.
(c) As an explorer.
(d) As a risk-taker.

4. According to Kant, how does a man stand in relation to the world?
(a) In the world's experience.
(b) In context of his unique personality.
(c) In context of other people's experience.
(d) In his own experience.

5. What color did Head attribute to neurology?
(a) Green.
(b) Grey.
(c) White.
(d) Black.

6. Why did Sacks refer to the doctor's visits as "odious" (Chapter Six, pg 159)?
(a) He preferred to be the doctor as the patient.
(b) The doctor was unusually harsh with him.
(c) He did not trust or like the doctor.
(d) He had to play the part of the accepting, passive patient.

7. What instrument did Sacks have for listening to music?
(a) An MP3 player.
(b) A small radio.
(c) A record player.
(d) A clarinet.

8. Following his second fall, how long did Sacks wait before surgery was performed
(a) Two hours.
(b) Three hours.
(c) Eight hours.
(d) Half an hour.

9. What was the oddest thing that happened while Sacks's shoulder and arm were in a cast?
(a) He could no longer feel their presence.
(b) They gave him constant pain.
(c) He forgot that he had ever had them.
(d) Their nerve endings no longer responded to stimuli.

10. How does Sack describe his thoughts during the first moments of standing again?
(a) The world was again possible.
(b) He was entering the world of the patient from the world of the dead.
(c) He was too excited to remember his thoughts.
(d) His life had been recreated.

11. While in limbo, what feeling did Sacks have to allow, which he first found humiliating?
(a) Inadequacy.
(b) Activity.
(c) Passivity.
(d) Inerrancy.

12. Who, in Sacks's family, had worked closely with Head?
(a) His father.
(b) His cousin.
(c) His mother.
(d) His brother.

13. In the quote from St. John of the Cross in Chapter Three, where does the light guide the man?
(a) To the place of eternal peace.
(b) To peaceful darkness.
(c) To the place where God was waiting for him.
(d) To the place of unconditional love.

14. How do we understand the concepts of time and space?
(a) In reference to the people around us.
(b) In reference to the physical world.
(c) In reference to ourselves.
(d) In context of our scientific understanding.

15. What did Sacks hope to accomplish by reading Head's books?
(a) Divert his thinking from his own past.
(b) Learn the emotional intricacies of body alienation.
(c) Understand how to prevent body alienation in the future.
(d) Receive illumination about his experiences.

Short Answer Questions

1. What reason did Sacks give for hating any creature with health?

2. How must a person react to the abyss?

3. Before he took a step, what visual problem did Sacks have?

4. If an outsider were to observe the patients at the convalescent home, what would he have seen?

5. Why could Head not explain the poetry of music and movement the way he felt it?

(see the answer keys)

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