One of the best-known works in our Essay Sampler (Part Two) is "Once More to the Lake," by E. B. White. For the story behind the essay, see E.B. White's Drafts of "Once More to the Lake." And for more information about the author himself, see Writers on Writing: E.B. White.
To make sure that you have read White's essay carefully, take this brief quiz, and then compare your responses with the answers at the bottom of the page.
1. In the present time of E. B. White’s “Once More to the Lake,” the narrator of the essay is accompanied by
(A) his son
(B) his father and mother
(C) his wife and children
(D) his dog, Fred
(E) nobody
2. In the opening paragraph of “Once More to the Lake,” White characterizes himself as which one of the following?
(A) a salt-water man
(B) a deeply religious man
(C) an atheist
(D) a divorced man
(E) an outdoorsy kind of guy
3. In “Once More to the Lake,” despite his claim that there “had been no years," White notices several changes that have occurred since he last visited the lake as a child. Which of the following changes is not mentioned in the essay?
(A) outboard motors instead of one-cylinder inboard motors
(B) a two-track instead of a three-track road to the farmhouse
(C) The waitresses are still fifteen but had washed their hair.
(D) more Coca Cola in the store and less Moxie and sarsaparilla
(E) The lake has grown polluted, and few people are willing to go swimming in it.
4. Which one of the following sentences does not appear in E. B. White’s essay “Once More to the Lake”?
(A) There had been no years
(B) There had always been three tracks to choose from in choosing which track to walk in; now the choice was narrowed down to two.
(C) There was a choice of pie for dessert, and one was blueberry and one was apple, and the waitresses were the same country girls, there having been no passage of time, only the illusion of it as in a dropped curtain. . ..
(D) Before my father died, he often spoke of taking my boy to the lake, where they might fish for bass and eat doughnuts dipped in sugar and lie on the town wharf listening to the mandolins.
(E) But there was a way of reversing them, if you learned the trick, by cutting the switch and putting it on again on the final dying revolution of the flywheel, so that it would kick back against compression and begin reversing.
5. In the final sentence of “Once More to the Lake,” the narrator feels
(A) a storm approaching
(B) like dancing
(C) the chill of death
(D) lonely without his wife
(E) the clean hair of the waitress
1. A; 2. A; 3. E; 4. D; 5. C.
