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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. When Sacks began to write to Luria, where did Luria live?
2. What was Luria's response to Sacks's story?
3. When was Studies in Neurology published?
4. After realizing that he was the victim of the fall, what did Sacks do?
5. When Nurse Solveig returned to take out Sacks's thermometer, what emotion did she convey?
Short Essay Questions
1. What distinction does Freud make between types of paralyses? How did the distinction pave the way for a significantly narrow view of neurology?
2. 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?
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. Through what physical senses does Sacks reenter the world of men?
5. All of Chapter Five is devoted to the moment Sacks took his first step. What literary effect does this have on the book?
6. What obvious differences existed between the injuries in Sacks's left leg and his right leg? What was the difference in their effects?
7. During the first night in the hospital whom did Sacks see in his dream? How did Sacks live to imitate this person?
8. 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?
9. Sacks says that simply his ability to stand changed the world and his place in it. How did this happen?
10. Sacks notes that "body-image is dynamic and plastic" (Afterword, pg 194). What does this mean?
Essay Topics
Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:
Essay Topic 1
What would have made the state of Limbo tolerable? What parts did the ideas of "hole" and "Hell" play in this state? Did scotoma lead to Limbo or explain it?
Essay Topic 2
What is the main point of A Leg to Stand On? In other words, what does Sacks most want his readers to learn? How does he illustrate or argue for this point throughout the book?
Essay Topic 3
How often does Sacks talk about or subtly reveal the dichotomy between his medical education and his experience as a patient? How does this honesty contribute to his persona as a writer?
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This section contains 1,662 words (approx. 6 pages at 300 words per page) |
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