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

Multiple Choice Questions

1. How many spoonfuls of Ganges water did Gawande drink, as part of his father’s funeral service?
(a) 1.
(b) 7.
(c) 3.
(d) 4.

2. Why does Dave Galloway say he does not want to take his pain medication when his cancer is troubling him?
(a) He says that it takes him from his wife and child.
(b) He says that it feels like a defeat.
(c) He says that it makes him depressed.
(d) He says that it makes him panic to be so close to death.

3. What was the first place Gawande’s father wanted his ashes scattered?
(a) Cleveland Ohio.
(b) Sacramento, California.
(c) New York city.
(d) Athens, Ohio.

4. What is moksha?
(a) Release from suffering.
(b) Assurance of justice.
(c) Liberation from earthly life.
(d) Forgiveness for sins.

5. By what rate did the death rate decline at Chase, after the introduction of animals?
(a) 38%.
(b) 42%.
(c) 15%.
(d) 20%.

6. What did Gawande’s father make Gawande promise him?
(a) He would not go a nursing home.
(b) He would not be alone when it was time.
(c) He would not let his pain embarrass him.
(d) He would not let him suffer.

7. How does Gawande say he answered when his patient’s family asked if his patient was dying?
(a) He could only explain all the variables.
(b) He lied and said no.
(c) He could not bring himself to tell the truth.
(d) He could not answer.

8. What did Gawande see stacked along the river bank when he and his guide set out to dispose of his father’s ashes?
(a) Bolts of fabric.
(b) Wood.
(c) Bodies.
(d) Mourners.

9. What does Gawande say his father always understood about life?
(a) That it was not his to lose or grieve.
(b) That it is short and his place in the world was small.
(c) That if it is lived well, there is no mourning, only celebration.
(d) That it was a gift and he could not be upset about losing it.

10. What does Gawande say are the three plagues of nursing homes?
(a) Boredom, loneliness and helplessness.
(b) Resentment, dread and indifference.
(c) Medicalization, standardization and efficiency.
(d) Abandonment, fear and confusion.

11. What is a pandit?
(a) A funeral guide.
(b) A boatman.
(c) A holy man.
(d) A professional mourner.

12. How does Gawande characterize the effect of introducing animals to Chase Memorial?
(a) Pandemonium.
(b) Terror.
(c) Hilarity.
(d) Happy confusion.

13. When does Gawande say developments in the field of palliative will provide cause for celebration in medical circles?
(a) When they spread to other fields of medicine.
(b) When they apply to every patient.
(c) Whenever they improve the quality of someone’s life and death.
(d) Every time they touch a patient.

14. What is the ars moriendi?
(a) The art of dying.
(b) The art of medicine.
(c) The art of consoling.
(d) The art of teaching.

15. What does Gawande say is the priority for hospice care?
(a) To provide peace and comfort.
(b) To wrap up a life.
(c) Help people have the fullest lives possible.
(d) To extend life.

Short Answer Questions

1. What does Gawande say has provided him with the most meaningful experiences as a doctor?

2. What factor correlated with the greatest inaccuracies when doctors estimated their patients’ survival times?

3. What percent of Americans does Gawande say died in hospice in America in 2010?

4. How does Gawande characterize “the average of a life’s moments” (238)?

5. What percent of Americans does Gawande say died at home at the end of the second World War?

(see the answer keys)

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