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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 functions are affected by this first shrinking of the brain?

2. What does Ivan Ilych die of?

3. What does Gawande say has increased along with our reluctance to honestly examine the experience of aging and dying?

4. How did Alice Hobson lose her car?

5. When does Gawande say he started to write about medical issues?

Short Essay Questions

1. What happened to Keren Wilson’s vision of assisted living facilities, as the idea took off?

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

3. How does Gawande characterize his grandfather’s aging and death?

4. What is rectangularization, and how does it affect society?

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

6. How does Gawande describe the development of this problem in medicine?

7. What conclusions does Gawande draw from the case of Joseph Lazaroff?

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

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

10. What are the challenges Gawande describes in Alice Hobson’s declining health?

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

Think about how you would like your own life to end. What decisions can you make today that will make “a good death” a likely outcome of your decisions? In what ways does our culture encourage this kind of thinking? In what ways does it distract from it? Where are the “good life” and “good death” valued?

Essay Topic 3

“Happiness” seems to be an important concept in Being Mortal, as some people, like Alice Hobson, cannot be happy with their lot as their families move them to institutions. How do you measure happiness, and how do you factor happiness into decisions about your own future medical care? What needs to happen for happiness to be factored into the decision making around aging and dying? Choose three different scenarios from the stories Gawande describes, to say how happiness can be included, or what are the consequences if it is not included in planning.

(see the answer keys)

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