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This quiz consists of 5 multiple choice and 5 short answer questions through Section 1: "We Didn't".

Multiple Choice Questions

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

2. What is the description of the condom springing from the narrator's fingers "like a spring from a clock" (235) meant to convey?
(a) The comical setting of their first attempt at sex.
(b) The narrator's general clumsiness.
(c) The pressure of time passing.
(d) The complex nature of growing up.

3. Who asks the narrator and Gin questions as they try to leave the beach?
(a) The police officer with a beer belly.
(b) The ambulance attendant.
(c) Curious onlookers.
(d) The police officer with the crew cut.

4. What is the title of the poem used as an epigraph for this story?
(a) "We Did It."
(b) "The Mirror."
(c) "In Darkness and in Light."
(d) "Water."

5. What technique is evident in the phrase "feverish plucking and twanging, tom-toms, congas, and gongs" (235)?
(a) Hyperbaton.
(b) Euphony.
(c) Cacophony.
(d) Double entendre.

Short Answer Questions

1. What technique is employed in the phrase "How adept we were at fumbling" (233)?

2. On the fall night when the narrator realizes that his relationship with Gin is over, what are they arguing about?

3. In what sense is the drowned woman also still constantly in the narrator's thoughts?

4. What characteristic of the area around the beach is conveyed with its nickname, the "Gold Coast"?

5. Why does the narrator say that Lake Michigan "became" the Pacific Ocean (235)?

(see the answer key)

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