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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. 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 imagines that every man he sees could be her killer.
(c) He constantly imagines her there beside Gin.
(d) He begins collecting newspaper articles about drownings.

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

3. How has the narrator and Gin's relationship changed by the end of the summer?
(a) The narrator has begun to notice other girls in his neighborhood.
(b) Gin cries whenever the narrator tries to kiss her.
(c) Gin is not comfortable being alone with the narrator.
(d) They argue constantly about trivial things.

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

5. What is the title of the poem used as an epigraph for this story?
(a) "We Did It."
(b) "Water."
(c) "The Mirror."
(d) "In Darkness and in Light."

Short Answer Questions

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

2. What does Gin tell the narrator she is afraid of when they are lying on the beach together?

3. What does Gin mean when she tells the narrator that she knows the dead woman?

4. What does the narrator see on the street when he is leaving Gin's building on the night of the beach incident?

5. Which detail of the narrator's description of their kisses indicates the passage of time?

Short Essay Questions

1. What does Gin dream about the dead woman and her grandmother's cottage?

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

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

4. 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.

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

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

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

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

9. What is the rhetorical purpose of including the narrator's loss of the condom right before the drowned woman's body is discovered?

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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