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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 arrangement did Felix have to make when he brought Bella back home from the nursing home?

2. Who does Keren Wilson say assisted living facilities are ultimately built for?

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

4. What does Gawande say is the greatest threat elderly people face?

5. What does Gawande say Lou Sanders was scared of?

Short Essay Questions

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

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

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

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

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

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

7. How does Gawande characterize the finances of geriatrics?

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

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

10. How does Gawande use graphs to characterize the decline of people’s health?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

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

Essay Topic 2

How do the problems Gawande describes in health care relate to other problems that are characteristic of American culture? Are American attitudes to health care related to attitudes about climate change? Environmentalism? Labor or environmental regulations? Pick an issue and show how the Americanness is similar or different.

Essay Topic 3

When is Being Mortal most itself? What is its characteristic passage, or moment? What makes that moment or passage the most representative of the book as a whole? Are there any places where the book seems to depart from its typical self, as if to become a different book?

(see the answer keys)

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