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This test consists of 5 multiple choice questions, 5 short answer questions, and 10 short essay questions.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. Why does Gin tell the narrator "Stop" when they are just about to have sex (236)?
(a) She sees something in the water.
(b) She has changed her mind about having sex.
(c) The narrator's condom has fallen off.
(d) She sees the police lights.

2. What characteristic of the area around the beach is conveyed with its nickname, the "Gold Coast"?
(a) It is beautiful.
(b) It is full of opportunity.
(c) It is expensive.
(d) It is similar to the Mediterranean.

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

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

5. 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 get over the incident on the beach.
(c) For her to apologize to him.
(d) For her to like him again.

Short Answer Questions

1. Who is the author of "We Didn't"?

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

3. To what British author does the narrator ironically compare himself near the end of the story?

4. 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?

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

Short Essay Questions

1. What does the narrator say might have happened if the dead woman had washed up beside them while he and Gin were trying to have sex on the beach, and why is Gin so offended?

2. In what sense does the narrator mean that, after the night on Oak Street Beach, the dead woman was always "with" him and Gin?

3. Explain the relationship of the story's title to the Amichai poem excerpt used as an epigraph.

4. When the narrator and Gin are on the beach, what does the narrator imagine the people along the Gold Coast doing, and what thematic ideas does his description convey?

5. What plot events--one immediate and one later--are foreshadowed by the narrator's description of "the bodies of lovers...visible in lightning flashes, scattered like the fallen on a battlefield" (234)?

6. On page 233, the narrator describes the girlfriend's mother's car as having "a rosary twined [around] the rearview mirror like a beaded, black snake with silver, cruciform fangs." Describe the tone of this image and explain how it is related to the narrator's later description of unbuttoning his girlfriend's shirt.

7. What do the first paragraph's details about the father's car convey about the family's social class?

8. What is the rhetorical purpose of the narrator's comments about the "bloodless way in which a young man discards his own virginity" (235)?

9. How is the From Here to Eternity love scene evoked ironically when the narrator and Gin are on the beach?

10. On the night in the lover's lane toward the end of the story, what does the narrator realize about his relationship with Gin?

(see the answer keys)

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