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This test consists of 5 short answer questions, 10 short essay questions, and 1 (of 3) essay topics.

Short Answer Questions

1. What language was the sign "BEWARE OF THE BULL!" written in?

2. How did Sacks splint his leg?

3. How long did Sacks think about his injury before he began writing about it?

4. How did Sacks meet the bull?

5. What is the essential idea of Thomas Mann's quote?

Short Essay Questions

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

2. A large portion of the horror Sacks felt in Limbo was the silence. What other time has Sacks experienced such deep silence? How does this connection contribute to Limbo?

3. Sacks discovered, to his horror, that his mental and moral boundaries had shrunk to the limits of the hospital. What does this mean? How did this differ from his mindset before the accident?

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

5. How much time does Dr. Swan spend with Sacks prior to the operation? How does this foretell his interactions with Sacks following the operation?

6. How did Sacks move from the world of freedom into the world of the hospital? How might this have contributed to his thought that the operation on the following day would actually be an execution?

7. What distinction does Freud make between types of paralyses? How did the distinction pave the way for a significantly narrow view of neurology?

8. While Sacks was lying in his small hospital room, what happened to his eyes? How was this transformation similar to his leg's injury?

9. 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?

10. During the late afternoon, what silence did Sacks experience? Why was this terrifying?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Describe the world of the convalescent home. How did Sacks change and grow stronger here? What did he learn about himself? How did the convalescent home allow him to approach the world again?

Essay Topic 2

Following the surgery, Sacks's spirit entered into the "dark night of the soul" (Chapter Three, pg 86). Find another example of this in literature and compare the two instances. Analyze personalities, situations, and reactions in order to understand both.

Essay Topic 3

"I was rather pleased to be compared with a dog--I much preferred it to being called 'unique.' And it brought home something about the elemental nature of the animal soul and animal motion, and about spontaneity, musicality, animation" (Chapter Six, pg 194). Explain this quote: when was Sacks compared with a dog? When was he referred to as unique? What element of movement and music was contained in this situation?

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