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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. According to the narrator, what did Dexter desire?

2. What can Dexter hear when he relaxes on the raft?

3. Which nationality did Dexter take special interest in learning about for his business?

4. Who does the girl try to attack with a golf club?

5. What does Judy wear when she comes downstairs for her dinner with Dexter?

Short Essay Questions

1. What is Dexter's first life changing decision based upon his winter dreams?

2. What did Dexter want out of life?

3. What is Dexter's impression of the dinner at Judy's house in Part 3?

4. How does Devlin describe Judy's marriage?

5. How does Dexter learn that Devlin knows Judy?

6. How does seeing Judy at the dance in Part 4 make Dexter feel?

7. Describe Dexter's taste in clothes. Include a description of the clothes he wears to dinner at Judy's house in Part 3.

8. What does Dexter mean at the end of Part 6 when he says, "That thing will come back no more?"

9. What is the lake like when Dexter swims out to the raft in Part 2?

10. When Dexter returned to Sherry Island Golf Club as a golfer, how does his feelings toward his fellow golfers change as the day progresses?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Many of Dexter's decisions in life revolve around Judy.

1. Describe the irony in Dexter and Judy's relationship.

2. Compare and contrast Dexter's feelings toward Judy from the beginning to the end of the story.

3. When does Dexter finally lose hope that he will ever be with Judy? Cite the specific event from the story.

Essay Topic 2

Dexter and Judy start their relationship with Judy telling Dexter she thinks she loves him. A week later she is running off with other men and stringing Dexter along.

1. How does Judy treat her men?

2. Why does Dexter stay with Judy? Why do the other men stay with her?

3. Compare Judy's treatment of men with how she is treated by her husband at the end of the story.

Essay Topic 3

At several points in this story, the plot seems to be pushed by coincidences.

1. Dexter and Judy often end up at the same dances, why did they meet in the obscure way they did on the open lake at night--instead of a more reasonable location like a dance?

2. Dexter learns of Judy's fading beauty from a man from Detroit. What is taken from the story if Dexter were to learn his information from someone in Black Bear?

3. Had these two events taken place differently, could the story have reached the same conclusion? Why or why not?

(see the answer keys)

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