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

Multiple Choice Questions

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

2. 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 apologize to him.
(b) For her to like him again.
(c) For her to stay away from him.
(d) For her to get over the incident on the beach.

3. Gin mentions her "nonna's cottage" (240). Whose cottage is this?
(a) Her mother.
(b) Her sister.
(c) Her grandmother.
(d) Her aunt.

4. What does the narrator see on the street when he is leaving Gin's building on the night of the beach incident?
(a) A condom.
(b) Gin's blanket.
(c) His underwear.
(d) Beach sand.

5. 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) The narrator has begun to notice other girls in his neighborhood.
(c) Gin is not comfortable being alone with the narrator.
(d) They argue constantly about trivial things.

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

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

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

9. After the narrator drops Gin off at her building on the night of the incident at the beach, why does she run back outside and call after him?
(a) She wants to know if he needs an umbrella.
(b) She needs to get her blanket back from him.
(c) She want to know if he is going to tell anyone what happened.
(d) She wants to tell him that she loves him.

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

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

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

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

14. On page 234, which of the following terms does the narrator use to describe the sunset?
(a) "Rose rapture."
(b) "Restless rose."
(c) "Pink peace."
(d) "Panorama pink."

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

Short Answer Questions

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

2. What technique is evident in the phrase "feverish plucking and twanging, tom-toms, congas, and gongs" (235)?

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

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

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

(see the answer keys)

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