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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 is most important about the end of Jewel Douglas’ story?

2. How many spoonfuls of Ganges water did Gawande drink, as part of his father’s funeral service?

3. How does Gawande characterize the effect of introducing animals to Chase Memorial?

4. What event does Jewel Douglas ask Gawande to help her get to?

5. How does Gawande characterize the people who spend the last days of their life in the ICU?

Short Essay Questions

1. What are the priorities Gawande says people have, at the end of their lives, that go beyond “prolonging their lives” (155)?

2. What does Gawande say goes into a “comfort pack” (162)?

3. How does Gawande characterize the work that remains to be done in medicine?

4. What are the three stages Gawande describes in medical development countries go through?

5. How do Gawande’s father’s two doctors approach his condition differently?

6. What was Bill Thomas’ experience prior to starting as the director at the Chase Memorial Nursing Home?

7. How did Gawande and his mother differ on the question of how to handle Gawande’s father’s care as death came closer?

8. How did Bill Thomas’ idea play out?

9. What does Sara Monopoli’s story illustrate?

10. What triumph of Gawande’s was Gawande’s father able to witness, in his declining health?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Who is the audience for Being Mortal? What is the ideal reader for Being Mortal likely to think about the book’s main topics? How does this book try to affect the reader? What is it trying to teach him or her, or get him or her to do?

Essay Topic 2

Gawande does not say too much about the economic aspects of the questions he addresses, but families from different economic classes experience these problems differently. How does economics affect the outcome for aging and dying? How different are the poor from the middle class or from the wealthy, in this regard? Why do you think Gawande neglected to discuss class as an aspect of this problem?

Essay Topic 3

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?

(see the answer keys)

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