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This test consists of 5 multiple choice questions, 5 short answer questions, and 10 short essay questions.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. What is Elena doing when Leda finds her by the shore in Chapter 10?
(a) Kissing her doll.
(b) Talking to a stranger.
(c) Building a sandcastle.
(d) Crying.

2. What subject do Leda and Gino settle on for discussion in Chapter 12?
(a) Giovanni.
(b) School.
(c) Nina and her family.
(d) Leda's children.

3. Who tells Leda over the phone that Canada is “an uninhabitable country, both winter and summer” (21).
(a) Giovanni.
(b) Gianni.
(c) Marta.
(d) Bianca.

4. How old was Leda when she had her second child?
(a) 25.
(b) 19.
(c) 43.
(d) 33.

5. What does Leda learn happened when she wakes at the start of the novel?
(a) Her daughter died.
(b) She lost her job.
(c) She drove into a guardrail.
(d) She nearly drowned.

Short Answer Questions

1. How did Leda feel about her mother?

2. What did Leda get upset with Florinda about?

3. Who does Leda recall in Chapter 3 as having a tendency to fall “in love with lean, nervous boys” (11)?

4. Who joins the Neapolitan family at the start of Chapter 6?

5. Why did Gino ask Leda to ask a group of bathers to move for the Neapolitans?

Short Essay Questions

1. What happens when Leda calls her daughters after getting hit with a pinecone? How does she feel after their conversation?

2. How did Leda get injured on her way back from the beach in Chapter 7? What does she think happened?

3. In what ways do the Neapolitans remind Leda of her family?

4. Where does Leda recall never looking when she lost Bianca on the beach? What does Leda recall doing when she was lost as a little girl? What was Elena doing when Leda found her?

5. How does Elena appear to Leda when she gets a closer look at her as she plays with her doll near Leda while her mother walks with her father in Chapter 9?

6. How did Leda's view of Nina change on the first Saturday of her vacation after the beach grew crowded at the end of Chapter 1?

7. Where does Leda wake up at the start of Chapter 1? Why? Who is there with her?

8. How old was Leda when she had her first child? How did her life change after becoming a mother? In what way is that different from her husband's life after parenthood?

9. What was Leda's routine her first few days of vacation?

10. Why did Leda give her childhood doll to Bianca when she was young? What toy did Bianca prefer to the doll Leda gave to her?

(see the answer keys)

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