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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. Essentially, why could Sacks not tense up the quadriceps?
(a) He had forgotten how.
(b) His brain could not communicate with either leg.
(c) His tendon had not been fully reconnected.
(d) The muscle was completely wasted away.

2. Following the surgery, how did Sacks's cast fit his leg?
(a) He could put his entire fist between his leg and the cast.
(b) He could put two fingers between his leg and the cas.
(c) The leg fit nearly perfectly in the cast.
(d) The leg was horribly swollen in the cast.

3. Why did Sacks write to A. R. Luria?
(a) He wanted reassurance about writing his book.
(b) Luria was the leading neuropsychologist in the United States.
(c) Luria was a close family friend.
(d) He was not getting satisfactory answers from his own doctor.

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

5. Why did the staff nurse laugh at Sacks when he arrived in his room?
(a) Because he had difficulty walking.
(b) Because he told her a bawdy joke.
(c) Because he had packed fifty books and almost no clothes.
(d) Because he was joking about his cast.

Short Answer Questions

1. When was Studies in Neurology published?

2. What was Luria's response to Sacks's story?

3. What other word is connoted by the word "hell"?

4. What book does Sacks model his own book after?

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

Short Essay Questions

1. The night before his cast was taken off, Sacks repeatedly dreamed a nightmare. What was this nightmare? How did it reveal the conflict in his mind?

2. What differences exist between the 1993 edition of the book and the previous editions? Without having read the previous edition, do you think these changes are positive?

3. During his descent off the mountain, what is Sacks's connection to humanity? How does this contrast to nature's impersonality?

4. How many patients with neurological disorders did Sacks study following his recovery? What does this number say about the people involved?

5. What happened after Sacks tried to catch the bus outside the Kilburn pool? How did this exactly match his previous experiences?

6. How does Sacks describe his arrival at the convalescent home? What particular words contribute to the picture he draws?

7. Patients in the hospital are treated with fear and sometimes horror by the healthy people who visit them. Using Sacks's thoughts, what might be the reason for this?

8. At his arrival to the Odda hospital, what was Sacks's experience with Nurse Solveig? How did this exemplify the prostration he began to feel in the hospital?

9. Leontev and Zaporozhet's book dealt with two hundred soldiers who suffered hand injuries. What was Sacks's reaction to the book? How did it help his healing process?

10. Chapter Two begins with the idea that Sacks's story was over. How might the readership have been different if he had actually ended the story here?

(see the answer keys)

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