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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 is Gawande’s relation to Alice Hobson?

2. What diagnosis did Lou Sanders get after he had a fall at age 88?

3. Where does Gawande say he witnessed the most hellish conditions of his life?

4. What does Gawande say Montaigne said about dying of old age?

5. Where does Gawande say Lou Sanders had grown up?

Short Essay Questions

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

2. What is the triumph in the story of Felix and Bella Silverstone?

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

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

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

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

7. What critique does Gawande make of his colleagues in the medical field?

8. What does Gawande say about the theory that we just “fall apart” as we age?

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

10. How is the story of Lou and Shelly different from Alice Hobson's death?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Write an evaluative review of Being Mortal. What is this book’s place in our culture? Who will find this book most useful? What are its uses? What are its limitations?

Essay Topic 2

What are the key omissions in Being Mortal? Where is Gawande missing key points about Americans’ experiences of death and dying? How do class or gender change Gawande’s narrative? How do different peoples within America experience different realities than the story Gawande tells?

Essay Topic 3

Where is the climax of this book? Are there different climaxes? What questions does each climax resolve? What questions does each climax leave unanswered?

(see the answer keys)

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