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This test consists of 15 multiple choice questions and 5 short answer questions.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. When does Gawande say people started to go to doctors, instead of doctors coming to them?
(a) After the 1970s.
(b) During the Depression.
(c) After World War II.
(d) After World War I.

2. What does Gawande say has increased along with our reluctance to honestly examine the experience of aging and dying?
(a) The cruelty we inflict on people.
(b) The indifference caretakers can feel.
(c) The compassion doctors can show.
(d) The sterility family members feel in the face of their loved ones dying.

3. What does Gawande say he tried to impress on Lazaroff?
(a) The risks of surgery.
(b) The chance of paralysis after surgery.
(c) The likelihood the treatment would fail.
(d) The inevitability of death.

4. What does Gawande say he and his fellow doctors never touched on, in talking about Lazaroff’s condition with him?
(a) The side effects to chemotherapy.
(b) The reality of his disease.
(c) The cost of the treatment.
(d) The likelihood the treatment would fail.

5. How old was Alice Hobson when she was widowed?
(a) 72.
(b) 41.
(c) 56.
(d) 88.

6. How much of the population does Gawande say was over 65 in 2017?
(a) 14%.
(b) 31%.
(c) 22%.
(d) 29%.

7. How does Gawande characterize the decline of health for people with “chronic illnesses—emphysema, liver disease, and congestive heart failure”?
(a) A series of dips followed by recoveries that approach the horizontal axis of death.
(b) A high line that ends abruptly.
(c) A high line that runs flat then falls quickly.
(d) A series of minor decreases in a slow decline toward death.

8. What does Gawande say tormented Ivan Ilych most?
(a) The impotence of his doctors.
(b) The story that he would just get better.
(c) The indifference his family felt.
(d) The lie that he was not really dying.

9. Who wrote The Death of Ivan Ilych?
(a) Ivan Turgenev.
(b) Mikhail Lermontov.
(c) Leo Tolstoy.
(d) Fyodor Dostoevsky.

10. When does Gawande say Keren Wilson founded the first assisted living facility?
(a) 1962.
(b) 1988.
(c) 1980.
(d) 1976.

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

12. What does Gawande say is the greatest threat elderly people face?
(a) Blindness.
(b) Heart attacks.
(c) Choking.
(d) Falling.

13. How does Gawande characterize the new developments in medicine, in talking about the case of Lazaroff?
(a) Blind groping
(b) Gambling.
(c) Torture.
(d) Cruelty.

14. What event does Gawande say sparked a national revolution in elder care?
(a) The Baby Boom.
(b) The New Deal.
(c) World War I.
(d) The Great Depression.

15. By what margin does Gawande say costs came down in Keren Wilson’s assisted living facility?
(a) 30%.
(b) 20%.
(c) 35%.
(d) 10%.

Short Answer Questions

1. How does Gawande say Alice’s family dealt with her depression?

2. What does Gawande say Laura Carstensen found in terms of people’s values in life?

3. What diagnosis did Lou Sanders get after he had a fall at age 88?

4. Who does Keren Wilson say assisted living facilities are ultimately built for?

5. What does Gawande say is the biggest difference between how people age today and how they used to age?

(see the answer keys)

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