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This test consists of 5 short answer questions, 10 short essay questions, and 1 (of 3) essay topics.

Short Answer Questions

1. What caused the fight between the girl and her nurse to be resolved?

2. What does Judy ask if she may do after dinner?

3. What did people like to say about Dexter when he returned to Black Bear?

4. What troubled Dexter when he was in college?

5. What did the main character have to restrain himself from doing when the girl argued with her nurse?

Short Essay Questions

1. What reasons did Judy give for ending her relationship with Dexter in Part 5?

2. Where do Dexter and Judy go together when they leave the dance in Part 4?

3. How does Dexter learn that Devlin knows Judy?

4. Why doesn't Dexter caddy for the young girl in Part 1?

5. At dinner in Part 3, what do Dexter and Judy discuss about Dexter's life?

6. What does Dexter want to do when learning of Judy's situation?

7. What does the narrator mean by saying that Judy was entertained only by the gratification of her own desires?

8. How does the first "official" meeting between Dexter and Judy go?

9. How does Dexter respond after Judy says, "I wish you'd marry me"?

10. Why did Dexter not regret the night he spent with Judy after he was engaged to Irene?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Winter Dreams is about Dexter and the dreams he has during the long Minnesota winters.

1. How does Dexter's early dreams influence events that occur at the end of the story?

2. How do Dexter's fantasies about beating the men on the golf course relate to his life?

3. What happens to Dexter's world when he realizes that something he thought was eternal - Judy's beauty - has faded?

Essay Topic 2

Dexter struggles to establish a lasting, meaningful relationship with Judy. When that fails, he gets engaged to Irene.

1. What does Dexter see in Irene that makes him propose to her?

2. What happens just before Dexter and Irene's engagement is to be announced?

3. Compare and contrast Judy and Irene.

Essay Topic 3

At several points in this story, the plot seems to be pushed by coincidences.

1. Dexter and Judy often end up at the same dances, why did they meet in the obscure way they did on the open lake at night--instead of a more reasonable location like a dance?

2. Dexter learns of Judy's fading beauty from a man from Detroit. What is taken from the story if Dexter were to learn his information from someone in Black Bear?

3. Had these two events taken place differently, could the story have reached the same conclusion? Why or why not?

(see the answer keys)

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