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

2. What is the tone of the narrator's description of people in Gold Coast apartments having sex?
(a) Ghoulish.
(b) Wry.
(c) Effusive.
(d) Derisive.

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

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

5. 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."

Short Answer Questions

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

2. What is the detail about how long the narrator has been carrying a condom in his pocket meant to convey?

3. What does Gin believe is true about the dead woman on the beach?

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

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

Short Essay Questions

1. What is foreshadowed by the page 233 description of their "lover's lane"?

2. What does Gin dream about a baby in the water, and what does she believe her dream means?

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

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

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

6. What is the inclusion of details about the House of Dong intended to convey?

7. What scenario does Gin keep thinking about after the night on Oak Street Beach?

8. 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)?

9. What messages about gender, sex, and adulthood are being conveyed in the phrase "entered you as if passing through a gateway into the rest of my life," which the narrator uses to describe his beliefs about what is happening on the beach that night?

10. Where are some of the places listed in the poem's opening paragraph, and how do they convey the couple's youth?

(see the answer keys)

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