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This test consists of 5 multiple choice questions, 5 short answer questions, and 10 short essay questions.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. From what author does the following quote come that opens the Introduction: “… death hath ten thousand several doors / For men to make their exits”?
(a) Rainer Maria Rilke.
(b) Phil Whiting.
(c) Harvey Nuland.
(d) John Webster.

2. How old was the woman that the author described having operated on for early-stage breast cancer in the Introduction?
(a) 56.
(b) 29.
(c) 35.
(d) 43.

3. When was Researches into the Physical History of Man published?
(a) 1913.
(b) 1813.
(c) 1864.
(d) 1775.

4. What is the motto of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services?
(a) “Looking after America’s Health.”
(b) “Improving the health, safety, and well-being of America.”
(c) “Looking after the sick and injured.”
(d) “Liberty, Health, and Freedom.”

5. All but how many names were changed in the stories shared by the author in How We Die: Reflections on Life's Final Chapter?
(a) 1.
(b) 4.
(c) 6.
(d) 9.

Short Answer Questions

1. According to the author in Chapter 1, James McCarty was the picture of what when he was admitted to the university hospital?

2. What word from Chapter 4 refers to any detached, traveling intravascular mass carried by circulation which is capable of clogging arterial capillary beds at a site distant from its point of origin?

3. What is the first of the four degrees of incoherence discussed in Chapter 5?

4. What word from Chapter 6 refers to the fatal process of blood loss, to a degree sufficient to cause death?

5. The human heart has a mass between how many grams?

Short Essay Questions

1. How does the author describe the metabolic changes of aging in Chapter 3?

2. How does the author describe the degeneration of his grandmother in Chapter 3?

3. What are the processes universal to dying described by the author in his Introduction?

4. What seven primary causes of death does the author cite for elderly patients in Chapter 4?

5. What medical advances does the author cite in the study of myocardial infarction in Chapter 2?

6. How treatable are cardiac events, according to the author in Chapter 1?

7. What case study does the author cite in discussing death by murder in Chapter 6? How did this individual die?

8. What does Dr. Nuland say regarding the bureaucracy of death in Chapter 3?

9. How has the determination of death changed over time, according to the author in Chapter 2? What are Dr. Nuland’s conclusions of the determination of death?

10. How do the brain and heart change as a person ages, according to the author in Chapter 3?

(see the answer keys)

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