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

Multiple Choice Questions

1. 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 complex nature of growing up.
(c) The pressure of time passing.
(d) The narrator's general clumsiness.

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

3. 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) Asyndeton.
(b) Polysyndeton.
(c) Synecdoche.
(d) Antithesis.

4. On the fall night when the narrator realizes that his relationship with Gin is over, what are they arguing about?
(a) A series of Elvis movies they saw at a drive-in.
(b) A female poet who has committed suicide.
(c) The drowned woman.
(d) Whether they will ever have sex.

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

6. What happens after the night on the beach, when the narrator senses Gin growing distant while they are kissing?
(a) He pretends to feel the same way she does.
(b) He tries to tell her jokes to cheer her up.
(c) He kisses her harder.
(d) He tells her she is crazy.

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

8. 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 narrator's best friend's house.
(b) Gin's grandmother's house.
(c) The balcony of the Clark Theater.
(d) A party in the outer suburbs.

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

10. What is the narrator's tone when he recalls, "I was trying to calm your terror with reassuring phrases such as 'Holy shit! I don’t fucking believe this!'” (236)?
(a) Acerbic.
(b) Fatalistic.
(c) Ironic.
(d) Bemused.

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

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

13. On the night when he realizes that their relationship is over, what does the narrator realize he really wants from Gin?
(a) For her to stay away from him.
(b) For her to apologize to him.
(c) For her to like him again.
(d) For her to get over the incident on the beach.

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

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

Short Answer Questions

1. In the story's opening, what details are related to the characters' social circumstances?

2. What mood do the diction and details included in the scene where the police leave their cars and enter the water create?

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

4. In the story's opening, what details are related to the passage of time?

5. What is the rhetorical purpose of the anaphora in the narrator's description of the Gold Coast residents having sex?

(see the answer keys)

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