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This test consists of 5 multiple choice questions, 5 short answer questions, and 10 short essay questions.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. When did Sacks begin writing to Luria?
(a) 1977.
(b) 1983.
(c) 1973.
(d) 1955.

2. How did Sacks splint his leg?
(a) With his walking stick.
(b) With a stick he found on the ground.
(c) With his umbrella.
(d) With his right leg.

3. What other word is connoted by the word "hell"?
(a) Helplessness.
(b) Hellish.
(c) Hole.
(d) Help.

4. How did Sacks meet the bull?
(a) The bull looked like a boulder until he got close to it.
(b) He came over a small rise and the bull was lying in the grass.
(c) The bull walked out of a stand of trees.
(d) He rounded a boulder and it was lying in the path.

5. What did Sacks think when he woke from the surgery?
(a) That he had been asleep only a few minutes.
(b) That he had been asleep for nearly a day.
(c) That he was tired and wanted to sleep.
(d) That he had been asleep for seven hours.

Short Answer Questions

1. What time of day did Sacks awake from his feverish delirium?

2. What book does Sacks plan to write in the future?

3. What was Sacks doing when he was finally able to piece together his thoughts?

4. What did Sacks think about as he moved down the mountain?

5. Who has written about the "occasions of poetry" (pg 9)?

Short Essay Questions

1. Sacks notes that "body-image is dynamic and plastic" (Afterword, pg 194). What does this mean?

2. While in the hospital, Sacks felt morally and physically prostrate before the doctor. How do you think this happened?

3. To whom did Sacks dedicate the book A Leg to Stand On? Why might he have chosen this person?

4. How was Miss Preston, the physiotherapist, more understanding than the surgeon had been? How did her understanding still fall short of the problem?

5. How does the quote at the beginning of Chapter Four compare to Sacks's own words which begin the chapter?

6. What does the detail from Sacks's journal explain? How does this excerpt capture the split between doctor and patient, which is captured in one person?

7. What advice did Sacks's maiden aunt give him? How does this advice come across on the printed page?

8. What meals does Sacks describe most from his time in the hospital? What do these meals say about his frame of mind at each time?

9. How does Sacks describe the bull? How does this description show his change of heart from the time he read the warning sign?

10. During the first night in the hospital whom did Sacks see in his dream? How did Sacks live to imitate this person?

(see the answer keys)

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