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This test consists of 5 multiple choice questions, 5 short answer questions, and 10 short essay 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 runs flat then falls quickly.
(c) A series of dips followed by recoveries that approach the horizontal axis of death.
(d) A high line that ends abruptly.

2. How does Gawande characterize the corpse he was given to work with, his first semester of medical school?
(a) Stringy.
(b) Tough.
(c) Juicy.
(d) Leathery.

3. What was the average number of children per family in the mid-1800s, and what was it by 1900?
(a) 5; 5.
(b) 6; 4.
(c) 9; 2.
(d) 7; 3.

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

5. Where does Gawande say he witnessed the most hellish conditions of his life?
(a) An elder home in India.
(b) A prison in Portugal.
(c) A nursing home in the American South.
(d) An insane asylum in Belgium.

Short Answer Questions

1. How many of the 100 people Mabel Nassau studied were able to support themselves?

2. How does Gawande characterize his exposure to death and the dying as a child?

3. How does Gawande characterize the change over time in blood vessels, joints and the valves of the heart?

4. By what age does Gawande say most people have functional dementia?

5. How much of the population does Gawande say was over 65 in 1790?

Short Essay Questions

1. How does Gawande explain the fact that our culture has not developed methods for providing better care for the elderly?

2. How does Gawande characterize the finances of geriatrics?

3. What kind of conditions does Gawande witness at the Guru Vishram Vridh ashram in India?

4. What events led to Alice Hobson saying “I’m ready” to her son, and then dying?

5. What was Lou Sanders’ experience of assisted living like?

6. How does Gawande characterize the future of geriatrics as a field?

7. How does Gawande describe his exposure to training about mortality in medical school?

8. How does Gawande say Keren Brown Wilson ended up starting her first assisted living facility in the 1980s?

9. How does Gawande characterize Ivan Ilych’s experience of dying?

10. When does Gawande say that we acquired the medical system in which people hand over their autonomy to doctors?

(see the answer keys)

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