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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 trend among geriatrics departments in hospitals?
(a) Mostly closing down.
(b) Closing more than opening.
(c) No change from the past 30 years.
(d) Opening in more and more hospitals.

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

3. What does Gawande say your chances of avoiding a nursing home depend on?
(a) How much money you have.
(b) How many children you have.
(c) Having sons.
(d) Having a younger spouse.

4. Which finger does Gawande say has 40% of the hand’s muscles?
(a) The thumb.
(b) The pinky finger.
(c) The middle finger.
(d) The pointer finger.

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

6. How does Gawande characterize the plot of a person’s health for most of history?
(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.

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

8. What was Lazaroff’s response to Gawande’s insistence?
(a) He became adamant about doing everything.
(b) He said that he trusted in God to protect him.
(c) He said he was looking forward to seeing his wife in heaven.
(d) He said that he trusted the doctors.

9. What does Lou Sanders’ daughter Shelley compare him to when he comes to live with her and her family?
(a) A cornered old turtle.
(b) A restless dog that cannot settle.
(c) A kid getting on the bus.
(d) A nervous girl making new friends.

10. How does Gawande characterize the change over time in blood vessels, joints and the valves of the heart?
(a) Weakening.
(b) Thinning.
(c) Stiffening.
(d) Softening.

11. What was the alternative Lazaroff was offered beside surgery?
(a) Assisted suicide.
(b) Comfort care.
(c) Radiation.
(d) Doing nothing.

12. What does Gawande say is the thing that strikes him most about Lazaroff’s case?
(a) His chance of survival was so thin.
(b) His determination to live was otherworldly.
(c) His determination to live was otherworldly.
(d) His doctors knew he could not be cured.

13. Who does Keren Wilson say assisted living facilities are ultimately built for?
(a) Older people’s children.
(b) Elderly people.
(c) Investors.
(d) Administrators.

14. What arrangement did Felix have to make when he brought Bella back home from the nursing home?
(a) He had to return to practicing medicine to pay for her care.
(b) He invited his daughters to live at home to help him.
(c) He had to have contractors make modifications of their home.
(d) He hired an army of nurses and aides.

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

Short Answer Questions

1. What event does Gawande say sparked a national revolution in elder care?

2. What made the Harry Truman Gawande describes a hero in his townspeople’s eyes?

3. How does Gawande characterize the state of the medical profession in the face of scientific advances that prolonged life and made dying a medical decision?

4. What does Gawande say led Keren Wilson to focus on assisted living facilities?

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

(see the answer keys)

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