ASM Final Exam Questions And Answers
2025 Update.
Roentgen shares part of his academic path with Albert Einstein: they each won entrance to
Zurich Polytechnical School by examination. What disqualified both of these scientists from the
traditional enrollment path? - Answer✔disobeyed the authority of educators
What personal attributes or capabilities enhance Roentgen's chances of his scientific
discoveries? - Answer✔- good with his hands
- meticulous experimenter
- rigid and stubborn, although not lacking imagination or daring
- spent endless hours in the lab
T or F: Roentgen discovered X-rays on Nov 8, 1895. For the subsequent 6 weeks, he performed
a series of experiments to characterize the distance that, and substances through which, X-rays
traveled, skipping meals to focus on documenting the novel discovery. His findings were
published within 7 weeks and a day by the physical and Medicine Society of Wurzberg.
However, it took several years, still, for clinicians to start using the technology. - Answer✔false -
xrays were embraced immediately
Describe some underlying personal motivations for Sigmund Freud that you read? - Answer✔-
His mother adored him and gave him the sense that "he was born to achieve something great"
which gave him the confidence to succeed later in life.
- His father, on the other hand, said the he would "never amount to anything" and Freud still
had dreams decades later of proving his father wrong by speaking his accomplishments.
How does the work of Freud and Weyer connect? Is there a difference in cultural response
between these two time periods? - Answer✔Both Freud and Weyer's work was focused on
human's mental state and brain function. Specifically, they both focused on psychiatric
problems, such as hysteria, to explain the very real symptoms of mental illness. In Weyer's
time, people and women specifically were seen as crazy and tortured for their mental
condition. In Freud's time though, these problems were legitimized and became proper
subjects in medical study.
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One technique that Freud and colleague Breuer became known for is "catharsis", which refers
to the process of "tracing [hysterical symptoms back to their] first appearance and re-
experiencing the associated thoughts and feelings" that were experienced the first time.
Through catharsis, many clients were able to stop the symptoms from occurring ever again,
essentially curing the "hysteria". This process was given a different name by "Anna O.", the first
patient who Breuer tried it with. What did she call it? - Answer✔chimney sweeping
In one word, what scientific/medical first is attributed to Ivanovsky? The discovery of: -
Answer✔viruses
In 3-4 sentences, tell the story of how Ivanovsky figured out this innovation. -
Answer✔Ivanovsky was analyzing stunted, discolored tobacco plants that he recognized were
infected by tobacco mosaic disease. He set out to isolate the microbe that he assumed was
causing the disease, but when juice from the infected leaves was put into a filter for bacteria,
the agent that spread the disease slipped through the filter which meant the microbe had to be
something he couldn't see. After reading Beijerink's discoveries that ruled out bacterial spores,
toxins, or particles, Ivanovsky believed that the most likely explanation for these filterable
viruses was that "the contagium is contained in the sap in the form of solid particles."
In 3-4 sentences, give your impression of Ivanovsky as a scientist and as a person. Address a
different impression or character trait of Ivanovsky per sentence (no repetition of information
between sentences. - Answer✔Ivanovsky seemed like he was methodical in the steps of his
experiment: recognizing the tobacco disease, pumping the juice through the filter, and used his
findings to make assumptions based on what was known in the world of medicine. He also
seemed territorial of his findings: he wrote to claim priority for the discovery that the agent
could pass through the filter and criticized Beijerinck's agar experiment. He was also open and
imaginative to this new disease-causing agent: it was too small to see with the naked eye and
not a known bacteria or toxin that caused the disease.
In 3-4 sentences, describe Fleming's "firsts"--his advances and discoveries. - Answer✔His first
discovery was that by surgically removing as much dead tissue as possible and flushing the
wounds of soldiers with sterile saline solution, infection was greatly minimized and the
production of white blood cells was stimulated. His second discovery was that droplets of nasal
mucus were destroying a yellowish bacterial colony in some contaminated culture plates and
identified the substance killing the bacteria as a protein called lysozyme. His other discovery
was of the powerful broad-spectrum antibacterial substance penicillin, which he came across in
his lab when he noticed on a petri dish that the staph colonies close to mold had dissolved. He
discovered the mold was secreting something that killed many of the disease-causing bacteria
even as it was diluted, now known as penicillin.
In a 3-4 sentences, describe the cultural and historical context of Fleming's life and work. -
Answer✔When World War I broke out, Fleming went to France to treat wounded soldiers
where he discovered antisepsis methods were not working for sever wounds of the soldiers.
Thousands of soldiers were dying of tetanus, blood poisoning, and gangrene. Flemings
approach to surgically remove dead tissue and flush the wound with saline was resisted within
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the army. His discovery of lysozyme and penicillin were both ignored and dismissed by his
colleagues.
In 3-4 sentences, talk about your impressions of Fleming as a scientist and a person -
Answer✔My impressions were that Fleming was a quiet and modest yet driven and brilliant
man who was confident in his remarkable discoveries. He seemed as though he had conflicting
personalities as a scientist and as a person. As a scientist, he was said to be a leader, always at
the top of his class, observant, and experimental. As a person, he was said to be a sports lover,
as well as modest, shy, and inscrutable.
T or F: Margaret Sanger coined the term "birth control" - Answer✔true - She first used the term
in the June 1914 issue of a newspaper she founded: called "The Woman Rebel".
T or F: Magaret Sanger created the birth control pill (The Pill). - Answer✔false - Sanger was a
leading advocate for birth control. Katherine Dexter McCormick provided the financial backing.
Sanger recruited Gregory Pincus and John Rock, experimental scientists, to developed the
product.
T or F: Sanger, who was a practicing nurse, was jailed for distributing information about birth
control to her clients. - Answer✔true - Sanger was sentenced to 30 days in jail for providing
information about birth control because it was illegal in her time.
The first surgeon to transplant a human heart successfully was: - Answer✔Christaan Barnard
The main issue causing organ transplantation failure is - Answer✔rejection
These days, in the US alone, organ transplantation occurs for - Answer✔more than 25,000
Americans per year
A researcher and a doctor created in vitro fertilization (IVF). Their names were -
Answer✔Robert Edwards and Patrick Steptoe
The discovery of IVF was first published in the scientific journal Nature in what year? -
Answer✔1969
Select 1 other medical first we've discussed that involved controversy. Compare/contrast the
controversy around IVF and the other medical first you've chosen - Answer✔The creation of IVF
was controversial as well as the creation of the Pill, two firsts that deal with the creation of life.
The topic of reproduction is subject to criticism by both the science and religious community on
the morality of the particular medical advancement. Both Edwards and Sanger were rebuked by
the scientific experts and religious leaders. Sanger's distribution of contraceptive information,
however, caught the attention of law enforcement, legally was banned, and caused her to be
sentenced to jail. The controversy of IVF did not uproar this kind of chaos to the public. It is also
noteworthy that Sanger is the first woman to be focused on in this book as a medical "first,"
which may have contributed to the controversy of the Pill over the already controversial topic.
The last case of smallpox in our world occurred in: - Answer✔1977
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