Take a few minutes to answer these questions in your own words — out loud or on paper. The goal is not to recite definitions but to check that the ideas connect. If any question leaves you uncertain, return to the lesson it comes from, or ask your AI mentor to talk it through with you.

Questions

  1. The two questions. Chinese and Western medicine each ask a different first question about a sick person. State each one, and explain what follows from the difference.
  2. Balance and flow. Health has two faces. Explain each, and give one concrete example of what goes wrong when each fails (one imbalance, one stagnation).
  3. Holism in practice. What does the holistic view (zheng ti) mean in the clinic — and why does the physician ask about sleep, digestion, mood and season, not only the main complaint? Why is this precise rather than vague?
  4. Heaven and Earth. Explain the image of the human being between Heaven and Earth. Where does each kind of Qi enter the body, and through which organs?
  5. Three philosophies. Name the three currents of thought that shaped Chinese medicine, and give one specific idea each contributed.
  6. Pattern versus disease. What is a pattern (zheng), and how does it differ from a disease? What does bian zheng mean?
  7. Putting it together. Two patients come with the same headache but receive different — even opposite — treatments. Using the idea of the pattern, explain exactly how this is possible. Then explain the reverse: how two different complaints might receive the same treatment.

How to read your answers

  • 6–7 answered clearly: excellent. You genuinely hold the foundation, and you are ready for Yin and Yang.
  • 3–5: a solid start. Re-read the summary, then revisit the specific lessons behind the answers that felt shaky.
  • Fewer than 3: no cause for worry — this is a foundation worth building well, and it repays a second, slower pass. Re-read the module without hurrying; because each idea rests on the last, they tend to click into place together.

The best test of all

There is one test better than any of the above: teaching. Pick the idea "a pattern, not a disease," and try to explain it clearly to someone with no background in two or three minutes. If you can make them understand it — why the same headache can call for opposite treatments — then you have truly understood it yourself. Teaching exposes the gaps that silent reading hides, and closing those gaps is exactly how a foundation becomes solid.

When you are ready, continue to the next course. The real architecture of Chinese medicine begins now.