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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. In 1961 the American Cancer Society, the American Heart Association and the __________________________ wrote a letter to President John F. Kennedy, asking for help in fighting cancer.

2. For whom is the Pap smear named?

3. The ______________, led by Rous, claimed that viruses cause cancer, although no such virus had been found in human studies.

4. _____________. of the seven people in Mukherjee's group continued at the clinic.

5. By 1993, Slamon's early phase clinical trials had become a hot topic among ____________ cancer patients.

Short Essay Questions

1. Who was George Papanicolaou? How was his work important?

2. Why did doctors dismiss the cancer found in chimney sweeps? How did cancer continue to be dismissed by others throughout time?

3. What is the Red Queen Syndrome?

4. Why was the battle to attack pre-cancer versus full blown cancer significant?

5. What is Genentech? How is this company important?

6. What are the similarities between AIDS and cancer? Is this important? Why or why not?

7. Why did the author end the book with Germaine's story? Is this a good ending? Why or why not?

8. What is the role of a clinician? What type of people are suited for this work?

9. What is the significance of the SRC gene?

10. How does the cure for cancer parallel the story of Achilles?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Disagreement arises regarding radical surgery, simple surgery, and other methods of removing cancer.

Part 1) What is radical surgery? What are the various opinions of radical surgery? How does this compare to simple surgery? What are other methods used to remove cancer?

Part 2) What study must be done to see which method is the best for removing breast cancer? Why does this turn out to be a difficult and long-lasting study? How can you sympathize with the people involved in this study?

Part 3) Might there have been a faster, more effective trial that could have tested these various methods? If so, what would it be? If not, why not? What do you know about breast cancer today? How is it often dealt with? Which of these methods are still used? Why?

Essay Topic 2

Carla Reed was a thirty year old kindergarten teacher who had leukemia.

Part 1) What were her symptoms? Why did it take so long to determine that she had leukemia? How did this lead to her meeting Siddhartha Mukherjee?

Part 2) Describe Mukherjee's experiences with Carla. How was she treated for leukemia? What were the results of her treatment? Why was she such an important part of this book? What purpose did her story serve throughout this book?

Part 3) How did Carla's story affect you? What do you now know about cancer and/or leukemia that you did not know prior to hearing Carla's story? How does this affect your opinion of those who suffer from cancer?

Essay Topic 3

Cancer is not the only disease discussed in this book.

Part 1) What are two other diseases discussed in this book? Describe these two diseases. What is the purpose of having these diseases discussed in this book?

Part 2) How do these diseases compare to cancer? Which disease do you find to be the most threatening to the American people? Why?

Part 3) What similarities can be found among various diseases including all that are discussed in this book? How is this important?

(see the answer keys)

This section contains 1,105 words (approx. 4 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample