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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 narrator's general clumsiness.
(b) The pressure of time passing.
(c) The comical setting of their first attempt at sex.
(d) The complex nature of growing up.

2. 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) The "now defunct Clark Theater."
(c) Gin saying that she feels "like Doris Day" is watching her.
(d) The "lilac bushes in Marquette Park."

3. 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) Lighting up the paths of far-away freighters.
(d) Making sea glass on Michigan beaches.

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

5. In the light from the squad cars and flashlights, what does the narrator see on the beach as the other couples are running away?
(a) The condom.
(b) A dead body.
(c) Garbage.
(d) Dead fish.

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

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

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

9. When the narrator unbuttons the second button on Gin's shirt, what does he see?
(a) Her camisole.
(b) A bruise.
(c) Her cross.
(d) A scar.

10. 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?
(a) To convey the narrator's ambiguous sexual orientation.
(b) To imply that the narrator is not really attracted to Gin.
(c) To create a mood of disgust.
(d) To depict Gin's youth and vulnerability.

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

12. Which detail of the narrator's description of their kisses indicates the passage of time?
(a) The suntan lotion.
(b) The Cokes.
(c) The lip gloss.
(d) The wind.

13. What technique is used in the sentence "On my fingers your slick scent mixed with the coconut musk of the suntan lotion we’d repeatedly smeared over each other's bodies" (234) ?
(a) Allusion.
(b) Imagery.
(c) Metonymy.
(d) Personification.

14. What is the rhetorical purpose of the anaphora in the narrator's description of the Gold Coast residents having sex?
(a) It stresses the similarities between the narrator and these strangers.
(b) It creates increasing tension as the list continues.
(c) It highlights the comic understatement of the narrator's response to the situation.
(d) It forms an ironic contrast with the story's opening.

15. From the context of page 234, what "apocalypse" is the allusion to the Four Horsemen referring to?
(a) Global pandemic.
(b) Nuclear annihilation.
(c) Climate change.
(d) Water scarcity.

Short Answer Questions

1. On page 234, which of the following terms does the narrator use to describe the sunset?

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

3. What is the first priority of the ambulance attendant when he arrives?

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

5. 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)?

(see the answer keys)

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