Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?

Reading Check questions are designed for in-class review on key plot points or for quick verbal or written assessments. Multiple Choice and Short Answer Quizzes create ideal summative assessments, and collectively function to convey a sense of the work’s tone and themes.

Reading Check

1. Where does Connie know Arnold Friend from?

2. What is playing on Ellie’s radio?

3. What is Arnold’s car like?

4. What does Arnold want Connie to do?

5. What promise does Arnold make to Connie?

6. What choice does Connie make at the end of the story?

Multiple Choice

1. Why is Connie dismissive of her mother’s opinion?

A) because her mother is religious

B) because her mother’s beauty has faded

C) because she thinks her mother settled for an unhappy life

D) because her mother drinks too much

2. What does running across the highway to the drive-in represent?

A) breaking the rules that Connie’s parents explicitly laid down

B) disrespecting the social order of the suburbs

C) moving into the adult world before the girls are prepared

D) being ignorant of what young women are supposed to do

3. Why does Connie say the movie she saw is “so-so” when June asks?

A) She doesn’t want June to go with her next time.

B) She didn’t go to see the movie.

C) She spent the whole movie kissing her date.

D) She fell asleep during the movie.

4. Why does the phrase “Man the flying saucers” seem strange to Connie?

A) It doesn’t make any sense to her.

B) It is the slogan of a rival high school.

C) It is too reminiscent of hippie culture.

D) It is an outdated slang term in her school.

5. How does Arnold respond when Connie tells him her father is coming back?

A) He tells her where her father is and who else is there with him.

B) He tells her he’ll never make it back in time.

C) He tells her he will kill anyone who comes home.

D) He tells her that her father is already taken care of.

6. What does Arnold say about Connie locking her door?

A) that she’s misbehaving and should be punished

B) that it’s pointless

C) that she’s being too smart for her own good

D) that he can wait her out

Short-Answer Response

Answer each of the following questions in a complete sentence or sentences. Incorporate details from the text to support your response.

1. Why is Connie resentful of June?

2. What’s significant about Connie seeing her house as small and pitiful just before Arnold Friend arrives?

3. How is Arnold Friend’s appearance a twisted reflection of Connie’s own impulses?

4. Why does Friend say that Connie coming outside to go away with him makes her better than her family?

5. How has Arnold trapped Connie into making the choice she makes?

6. What is ironic about the description of the landscape when Connie leaves her home?