View a FREE sample

This test consists of 15 multiple choice questions and 5 short answer questions.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. What repetition technique is used in the story's opening paragraph?
(a) Epizeuxis.
(b) Antanaclasis.
(c) Epistrophe.
(d) Anaphora.

2. To what does the narrator compare the other lovers on the beach?
(a) Abandoned mannequins.
(b) Crash-test dummies.
(c) Sleeping dolls.
(d) Fallen soldiers.

3. In the story's opening, what details are related to the story's epigraph?
(a) Gin's bed and their parents' cars.
(b) Light and darkness.
(c) Grass, leaves, and snow.
(d) The condition of the Rambler and the rosary.

4. What kind of blanket does Gin bring to the beach?
(a) Her grandmother's quilt.
(b) An army blanket.
(c) A Navajo blanket.
(d) A picnic blanket.

5. In the story's opening, what details are related to the characters' social circumstances?
(a) Grass, leaves, and snow.
(b) The condition of the Rambler and the rosary.
(c) Light and darkness.
(d) Gin's bed and their parents' cars.

6. When the police examine the woman's body in the light of their flashlights, what does her nakedness and obvious pregnancy cause them to do?
(a) Remove their hats and bow their heads.
(b) Cross themselves and say a prayer.
(c) Look at Gin uncomfortably.
(d) Tell the narrator and Gin to move back.

7. What mood do the diction and details included in the scene where the police leave their cars and enter the water create?
(a) Frantic.
(b) Inflammatory.
(c) Reverent.
(d) Factual.

8. What does the narrator speculate that the lightening across the water might be doing?
(a) Setting Indiana barns on fire.
(b) Chasing the seagulls out of the sky.
(c) Making sea glass on Michigan beaches.
(d) Lighting up the paths of far-away freighters.

9. To what does the narrator compare Gin's mother's rosary?
(a) A belt.
(b) A noose.
(c) A snake.
(d) A bolo tie.

10. In what sense is the drowned woman also still constantly in the narrator's thoughts?
(a) He sees her as a symbol of his own recklessness.
(b) He begins collecting newspaper articles about drownings.
(c) He imagines that every man he sees could be her killer.
(d) He constantly imagines her there beside Gin.

11. Who is the author of "We Didn't"?
(a) Vincent Kowalski.
(b) Perry Katzek.
(c) Stuart Dybek.
(d) Yehuda Amichai.

12. What does the narrator compare the dead woman's hair to?
(a) Leaves.
(b) A horse's tail.
(c) A wig.
(d) Seaweed.

13. What does Gin tell the narrator she is afraid of when they are lying on the beach together?
(a) Her parents finding out.
(b) Someone seeing them having sex.
(c) Getting pregnant.
(d) Him leaving her.

14. Which of the following is one of the places where the narrator and Gin go to try to resume their attempts at intimacy after the incident at the beach?
(a) The balcony of the Clark Theater.
(b) The narrator's best friend's house.
(c) A party in the outer suburbs.
(d) Gin's grandmother's house.

15. Why does the narrator say that Lake Michigan "became" the Pacific Ocean (235)?
(a) The sound of the waves is exaggerated by his excitement.
(b) Gin has always imagined losing her virginity on a California beach.
(c) He is experiencing a feeling of being lost in space and time.
(d) He is referencing the film From Here to Eternity.

Short Answer Questions

1. When the narrator unbuttons the second button on Gin's shirt, what does he see?

2. Who asks the narrator and Gin questions as they try to leave the beach?

3. After the narrator drops Gin off at her building on the night of the incident at the beach, why does she run back outside and call after him?

4. Gin mentions her "nonna's cottage" (240). Whose cottage is this?

5. Which of the following techniques is used in the sentence "How adept we were at fumbling, how perfectly mistimed our timing, how utterly we confused energy with ecstasy" (233)?

(see the answer keys)

This section contains 643 words (approx. 3 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample