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This quiz consists of 5 multiple choice and 5 short answer questions through Chapter 2 — Things Fall Apart.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. What view does Gawande ultimately take, on the question of why we age?
(a) Things are degraded.
(b) Things are not well cared for.
(c) Things break down.
(d) Things shut down.

2. By what age does Gawande say most people have functional dementia?
(a) 65.
(b) 85.
(c) 75.
(d) 70.

3. When were retirement communities popularized in the U.S.?
(a) 1960s.
(b) 1970s.
(c) 1980s.
(d) 1950s.

4. What functions are affected by this first shrinking of the brain?
(a) Language.
(b) Abstract thinking.
(c) Planning.
(d) Judgment.

5. How does Gawande characterize his grandfather Sitaram Gawande’s elder years?
(a) Traveling independently.
(b) Bouncing back and forth between family members.
(c) Surrounded by family.
(d) Alone in an asylum.

Short Answer Questions

1. What does Gawande say is the thing that strikes him most about Lazaroff’s case?

2. How does Gawande characterize the decline of health for the majority of people who age normally with modern medicine?

3. What does Gawande say has increased along with our reluctance to honestly examine the experience of aging and dying?

4. What kind of system does Gawande compare human bodies to?

5. What does Gawande say is the first part of the brain to shrink with aging?

(see the answer key)

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