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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. How does Mary Roach explain the results of Le Grande's tests?

2. What does Rick Lowden study?

3. How does Mary Roach characterize the second stage of decay in a cadaver?

4. Why does Duncan McPherson of the LA Police Department believe people fall down when shot?

5. How do resident surgeons treat cadavers, in Mary Roach's account?

Short Essay Questions

1. How were morticians preparing bodies at the San Francisco College of Mortuary Science?

2. What test was Captain Louis Le Garde ordered to perform in 1893?

3. What kinds of signs did the cadavers from Flight 800 have?

4. What was the result of the test Le Garde performed?

5. What were Shanahan's conclusions about the cause of the Flight 800 disaster?

6. What kinds of incidents does Dennis Shanahan investigate?

7. What did Thomas Holmes do?

8. Why are human cadavers preferable to animals?

9. How does Mary Roach describe the smell of dead bodies?

10. What does Rick Lowden study?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

What material is missing from 'Stiff', and what is the effect of its absence? What, if anything, should Mary Roach have covered which she did not?

Essay Topic 2

How has the practice of burying the dead changed in the recent past, as people have become more aware of their influence on the environment?

Essay Topic 3

How does Mary Roach use voice and tone to probe into and back away from the complexities surrounding cadavers? What are her primary tones, and how does she modulate them to handle different emotional situations?

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