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

Multiple Choice Questions

1. How does Gawande characterize the decline of health for the majority of people who age normally with modern medicine?
(a) A series of minor decreases in a slow decline toward death.
(b) A high line that ends abruptly.
(c) A series of dips followed by recoveries that approach the horizontal axis of death.
(d) A high line that runs flat then falls quickly.

2. What does Gawande say Ilych wanted?
(a) To be remembered.
(b) To be lionized.
(c) To be pitied.
(d) To be celebrated.

3. How does Gawande characterize his exposure to death and the dying as a child?
(a) He had a period when a lot of his friends’ grandparents and relatives were sick or died in a cluster.
(b) He had almost no exposure.
(c) He had a grandfather living with him and saw his decline in detail.
(d) He was surrounded by rural poverty and high mortality.

4. What does Ivan Ilych die of?
(a) Tuberculosis.
(b) An unnamed disease.
(c) Malnourishment.
(d) Cholera.

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

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

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

8. What does Gawande say older people’s diets tend to be richer in?
(a) Foods that lack key nutrients.
(b) Foods that cause cavities.
(c) Foods that lead to weight gain.
(d) Foods that cause ulcers.

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

10. 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 compassion doctors can show.
(c) The sterility family members feel in the face of their loved ones dying.
(d) The indifference caretakers can feel.

11. How many of the 100 people Mabel Nassau studied were able to support themselves?
(a) 65.
(b) 27.
(c) 42.
(d) 9.

12. What does Gawande say is the biggest difference between how people age today and how they used to age?
(a) They used to be much more independent.
(b) They used to be cared for in multi-generational systems.
(c) They used to die much earlier.
(d) They used to be much more private.

13. What does Gawande say he felt about the dead people who showed up in his dreams?
(a) That they had come to kill him.
(b) That he had betrayed them.
(c) That he had killed them.
(d) That he was responsible for their souls.

14. Why does Gawande say we do not have “the kind of old age” our grandfathers had (20)?
(a) Because we have alienated generations of youth.
(b) Because our families have been broken by emigration.
(c) Because we cannot afford them.
(d) Because we do not want them.

15. When does Gawande say Lou Sanders became a widower?
(a) At 76.
(b) At 81.
(c) At 56.
(d) At 63.

Short Answer Questions

1. What does Gawande say made Alice Hobson unhappy with her assisted living facility?

2. What was the average number of children per family in the mid-1800s, and what was it by 1900?

3. Where does Gawande say he witnessed the most hellish conditions of his life?

4. How did Gawande’s grandfather and his wife avoid starving to death as newlyweds?

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

(see the answer keys)

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