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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 are the only people in Noam's drawing doing within his picture of the scene of 9/11?

2. Who coined the term "neuroception" (74) to describe the capacity to evaluate the safety within a particular environment?

3. What is the first option presented to an autonomic nervous system trying to navigate a dangerous situation?

4. Van der Kolk states that "the way medicine approaches human suffering has always been determined by the" what "available at any given time" (31)?

5. From which person at camp did Van der Kolk learn about the functions of human kidneys?

Short Essay Questions

1. In what way was summer camp a formative experience in Van der Kolk's trajectory toward his chosen career?

2. What does the cage symbolize within Van der Kolk's story about Steven Meier's experiments?

3. What three elements of the body did Charles Darwin assert communicated by using the same nerve?

4. What are the three levels of response available to humans facing stressful situations, according to Steve Porges?

5. What does Van der Kolk mean when he says he hopes that the book serves as not only a guide, but as an invitation?

6. What is Van der Kolk's purpose for including a story about Tom's refusal to take his prescribed medication?

7. What relationship does Van der Kolk identify between trauma and sensory experiences?

8. What aspect of the assessment Van der Kolk gave to Noam intrigued Van der Kolk the most and why?

9. Who developed the Polyvagal Theory and for which academic institution did he work at the time?

10. What specific role does the right brain perform in the aftermath of trauma?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Analyze the ways in which the themes of adaptability and resignation appear within Van der Kolk’s book The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma. What message is Van der Kolk sending about these two themes over the course of the text?

Essay Topic 2

Discuss the instances of irony within the narrative of The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma and analyze Van der Kolk’s purpose for including each instance you discuss.

Essay Topic 3

In what way does Van der Kolk go about breaking the text into parts and how do these structural elements help to advance the text’s arguments?

(see the answer keys)

This section contains 1,201 words (approx. 5 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample