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

Multiple Choice Questions

1. 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) Look at Gin uncomfortably.
(b) Remove their hats and bow their heads.
(c) Cross themselves and say a prayer.
(d) Tell the narrator and Gin to move back.

2. In Gin's dream about the beach, why has the narrator left her alone?
(a) He has gone to get some mustard.
(b) After they have sex, he loses interest in her.
(c) They have had a big fight.
(d) He is trying to help find a lost child.

3. While he is on the beach, what does the narrator imagine the couples in the high-rises around them are wearing?
(a) Monogrammed pajamas.
(b) Cocktail attire.
(c) Business suits.
(d) Spa robes.

4. What does Gin believe is true about the dead woman on the beach?
(a) She was sent by God.
(b) She was an omen.
(c) Her death was accidental.
(d) Gin and the narrator could have saved her.

5. What detail on page 233 reveals that some time has passed since the events of the story took place?
(a) The characters visiting "Oak Street Beach."
(b) Gin saying that she feels "like Doris Day" is watching her.
(c) The "lilac bushes in Marquette Park."
(d) The "now defunct Clark Theater."

6. How has the narrator and Gin's relationship changed by the end of the summer?
(a) Gin cries whenever the narrator tries to kiss her.
(b) They argue constantly about trivial things.
(c) The narrator has begun to notice other girls in his neighborhood.
(d) Gin is not comfortable being alone with the narrator.

7. What technique is used in the phrase "the forlorn, deflated Trojan" (238)?
(a) Personification.
(b) Onomatopoeia.
(c) Hyperbole.
(d) Simile.

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

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

10. What technique is employed in the phrase "and justice for all" (234)?
(a) Metaphor.
(b) Allusion.
(c) Litotes.
(d) Verbal irony.

11. What is the detail about how long the narrator has been carrying a condom in his pocket meant to convey?
(a) His eagerness to have sex with Gin.
(b) His blindness to Gin's feelings.
(c) His relative experience compared to Gin.
(d) His responsible attitude.

12. What is the first priority of the ambulance attendant when he arrives?
(a) To see if the baby is also deceased.
(b) To ask whether Gin and the narrator know the woman's name.
(c) To try to give the woman CPR.
(d) To demand that the woman be covered up.

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

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

15. 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)?
(a) Antithesis.
(b) Asyndeton.
(c) Synecdoche.
(d) Polysyndeton.

Short Answer Questions

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

2. In the simile that the narrator uses when he describes holding Gin's breasts in his hands on page 234, to what does he compare her breasts?

3. What kind of buildings are on the lovers' lane?

4. What is the rhetorical purpose of including the detail "the skinny rails of your legs" (235) when the narrator is talking about taking off Gin's bikini bottom?

5. What is the description of the condom springing from the narrator's fingers "like a spring from a clock" (235) meant to convey?

(see the answer keys)

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