View a FREE sample

This test consists of 5 short answer questions, 10 short essay questions, and 1 (of 3) essay topics.

Short Answer Questions

1. When did Samuel Butler write Erewhon?

2. What disease in Chapter 5 reduces a person to a "sick environment" (37)?

3. What drug was one of the first generation of cancer drugs?

4. At what medical school did Dr. Caroline Bedell Thomas work?

5. Who believed that Mansfield became preoccupied with trying to heal her soul and abandoned other treatments?

Short Essay Questions

1. What correlation did doctors see between cancer and complaints?

2. In the nineteenth century, what did disease have to do with the will?

3. How was disease viewed by the Greek in Chapter 6?

4. In Death in Venice, how did disease affect Gustav von Achenbach?

5. How did the contrast between passions change according to Sontag in Chapter 6?

6. What observations did Galen make regarding women who got breast cancer?

7. How were the cancer-prone and the TB-prone persons described in Chapter 5?

8. Why was cancer thought to be an inapprorpriate disease for a romantic person in contrast to TB?

9. In Chapter 5, what example does Sontag present of how cancer was viewed as a disease that caused a person to finally behave well?

10. What two hypotheses does Sontag discuss regarding the expansion of illness?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

The myth of tuberculosis was dispelled in the mid-twentieth century. When were cures for tuberculosis discovered? How was the reality and description of tuberculosis transformed and changed when a cure was found?

Essay Topic 2

Juxtaposition is a literary device used to compare and contrast things and concepts. How does Sontag use juxtaposition to compare concepts, especially in Chapter 5?

Essay Topic 3

Metaphors used to describe cancer and tuberculosis changed over time. How did the metaphors used to describe cancer and tuberculosis change over time? What does etymology reveal about those changes?

(see the answer keys)

This section contains 791 words (approx. 3 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample