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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. Who was the Harvard anesthesiologist that published a study in the New England Journal of Medicine showing that Chester Southam's cancer research was just one of hundreds of similarly unethical cases?

2. What U.S. President created the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis?

3. What was the first publication to name the woman behind the HeLa cells in 1953?

4. What nickname did Dr. Richard Wesley TeLinde have at John's Hopkins in the 1950s?

5. Where did Henrietta live with her grandfather growing up after her mother died?

Short Essay Questions

1. What role did Bobbette take in the family after marrying Lawrence? Why?

2. How did the doctors at Johns Hopkins treat Henrietta Lacks after her recurrence of cancer in June of 1951?

3. What unethical actions were committed by virologist Chester Southam in his research with HeLa cells?

4. What were Mary Kubicek's impressions of HeLa cells when she first began observing them? What were George Gey's impressions of the cells?

5. How does the author describe Courtney Speed in the narrative? What business(es) did Ms. Speed run at the time the author first met her?

6. What led to the trial against Southam and Mendel? What sentence did the men receive?

7. How do you think Henrietta Lacks's life would have been different if her mother had not died when Henrietta was still a child? Why?

8. What precedent was set by the 1957 case of patient Martin Salgo?

9. Who established the first distribution center for HeLa cells? Where was it established?

10. How is Henrietta Lacks's early childhood described in the book? When and where was she born? Where did she grow up?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Discuss the narrative and language styles seen in The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks. How does the narrative shift in the course of the book? How does the dialogue in the narrative differ from the language style of the author? What literary devices are employed the most in the story?

Essay Topic 2

How does the author depict the repercussions of the loss of a parent in the narrative? How do you think Henrietta's life would have differed if her mother had lived? How would Deborah's life have been changed?

Essay Topic 3

Discuss the qualities of HeLa cells. Why were HeLa cells different than other cells that researchers had attempted culturing in the past? What made HeLa cells invaluable to scientific progress?

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