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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 did Dr. Duncan McDougal try to measure?

2. What was the original advantage of cremation when it was first advocated?

3. Who ended the belief in severed head consciousness?

4. What is anastomosis?

5. Why were skeletons no longer procured from there?

Short Essay Questions

1. What part of the history of cremation does Mary Roach describe?

2. What does Mary Roach say she wants to become if she donates her body?

3. What does Mary Roach say she ultimately wants to do with her body?

4. Which were the best mummies for medicinal uses?

5. Who typically sold body parts, and for what purposes?

6. What did Duncan McDougal try to measure?

7. What process is Wiigh-Masak advocating in Sweden?

8. What is a mellified man?

9. How are animals disposed of at Colorado State University Veterinary Teaching Hospital, in Mary Roach's account?

10. What did Dr. Robert White do with a monkey brain, and what was Mary Roach's question for Dr. Robert White?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Having read 'Stiff', would you give your body to science? Explain why or why not. Would you stipulate what kinds of uses your body could or could not be put to?

Essay Topic 2

What is Mary Roach's central concern in 'Stiff'? Her book covers a wide variety of topics regarding dead bodies. What is her central interest--Or is this book a wide-ranging 'exploration' that is not tightly centered on an overarching question or concern?

Essay Topic 3

What is the fascination in books like Mary Roach's, and TV shows like Bones or Crime Scene Investigators--what questions or interests are they tapping into in their audiences? Is it the living drama of the people performing the investigations, or the investigations themselves that create the interest?

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This section contains 796 words (approx. 3 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample