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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) Action.
(c) Patience.
(d) Passivity and patience.

2. What was scheduled for Wednesday the 11th?
(a) Sacks would get out of bed and walk.
(b) The temporary leg cast would be removed.
(c) Sacks would move from the hospital to the convalescent home.
(d) Therapy would become quite intense.

3. What is Hannah Arendt's idea about the space without time?
(a) It is the place where Man must face himself most chillingly.
(b) It is the place where Man is not himself.
(c) It is the only place to meet God.
(d) It is the only home of Soul and Art.

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

5. Why did Sacks find beauty as well as fear in darkness?
(a) There was hope for a new light.
(b) The darkness was guided by God.
(c) The darkness was part of human experience.
(d) There was hope for an end.

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

7. Before he took a step, what visual problem did Sacks have?
(a) He could not see his feet.
(b) He could not judge objects or distances.
(c) He could not distinguish colors.
(d) The floor looked closer than it actually was.

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

9. As Sacks returned to his room, what was the weather like?
(a) Dark and stormy.
(b) Lightly snowing.
(c) Sunny and warm.
(d) Chilly and wet.

10. How did Sacks's knee return to its full functionality?
(a) He stopped thinking about its physical movements.
(b) He was challenged to swim.
(c) He walked one mile a day.
(d) He went through one week of therapy.

11. In the convalescent home, what did Sacks's first breakfast partner find amusing?
(a) Sacks' situation.
(b) The irony of their respective leg injuries.
(c) Everything about the world.
(d) The jokes of the serving nurses.

12. Montaigne, Kant, and Einstein all agree that there is no substitute for what?
(a) Philosophy.
(b) Education.
(c) Science.
(d) Experience.

13. Why was it so difficult for Sacks to take the first step?
(a) He felt that the physiotherapists were pressuring him.
(b) His feet felt too heavy to lift.
(c) He could not get his sense of balance.
(d) He had forgotten how to walk.

14. Before Sacks's cast was taken off, what did he dream that it was filled with?
(a) A lacerated leg.
(b) Someone else's leg.
(c) Air or rotting bones.
(d) Joy and concerto music.

15. Whom does Sacks quote to illustrate his need for patient waiting?
(a) St. Christopher.
(b) Eliot.
(c) Conrad.
(d) Nietzsche.

Short Answer Questions

1. What did Sacks hope to accomplish by reading Head's books?

2. While watching the surgery on his right leg, what time does Sacks remember?

3. Sacks did not attend the memorial service for W. H. Auden because he thought he was too weak to travel. Where was this service held?

4. While in limbo, what feeling did Sacks have to allow, which he first found humiliating?

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

(see the answer keys)

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