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This test consists of 5 short answer questions, 10 short essay questions, and 1 (of 3) essay topics.

Short Answer Questions

1. What does Gawande say tormented Ivan Ilych most?

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

3. When did Gawande’s father become a U.S. citizen?

4. What does Gawande say drives youth to seek their own opportunities as opposed to caring for their elders?

5. What does Gawande say is the first part of the brain to shrink with aging?

Short Essay Questions

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

2. What perspective does Gawande’s father offer on Alice Hobson’s aging process?

3. What does Gawande say he learned from Mabel Nassau’s study of elderly people in Greenwich Village?

4. When did the experience of aging and dying come home for Gawande?

5. How does Gawande characterize the problems surrounding Alice Hobson’s declining health?

6. How does Lou Sanders’ story mark a development of Gawande’s argument in Being Mortal?

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

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

9. How does Gawande characterize the finances of geriatrics?

10. Why does Gawande say doctors do not want to practice geriatrics?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Evaluate the ending of Being Mortal. Does it ring true to you? Does the act of scattering Gawande’s father’s ashes successfully wrap up the book? What would you change about the ending, if anything? What are you left wishing for closure on, if anything?

Essay Topic 2

What are the emotions Gawande’s book makes you feel, and how do those emotions affect you? Do they make you want to take action, or avoid action? What stories do you tell yourself to protect yourself from the harder emotions in Gawande’s narrative?

Essay Topic 3

What is the reform you would suggest or support, to change the nature of elder care in our culture? What problem would your reform address, and what are the potential complications it would create? Who would be in favor of your reform, and who would not? Why?

(see the answer keys)

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