Challenger Deep

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.

Chapters 1-30

Reading Check

1. Where is the Captain taking the ship?

2. Who does Caden think is/are trying to kill him?

3. Why does Caden’s family go on a trip to Las Vegas?

4. What does Caden consume in the crow’s nest of the ship?

Multiple Choice

1. Which of the following quotes best emphasizes the theme of The Nature of Reality?

A) “You don’t dare imagine beyond that moment. Because waiting in that moment is the Captain. And he waits. Always.” (Chapter 1)

B) “I’m that coin on its way down, screaming in the neck of the funnel, with nothing but my own kinetic energy and centrifugal force keeping me from dropping into darkness.” (Chapter 7)

C) “There’s this thing in my head that I have to purge onto the page before it changes the shape of my brain. Before the colorful lines cut into it like a cheese wire.” (Chapter 28)

D) “There are two things you know. One: you were there. Two: you could not have been there.” (Chapter 1)

2. Which character asks Caden into a meeting where he fills out a questionnaire?

A) the Captain

B) the Parrot

C) the Navigator

D) Carlyle

3. How does the pale man respond when a crewmember jumps from the crow’s nest?

A) “Jumpers do what jumpers do.”

B) “Who’s surprised? The third one this week.”

C) “Ye should have stopped the lad.”

D) “Good riddance, he was a horrible worker.”

4. When Caden asks the name of the ship in Chapter 9, the Captain says that “to name her is to sink her.” What interpretation of this quote is most accurate?

A) The ship was stolen, and the Captain doesn’t want anyone to find out.

B) The Captain is hiding the fact that he doesn’t know the ship’s name.

C) The Captain does not want Caden to realize where he really is.

D) The Captain is not going to name the ship until they reach their destination.

Short-Answer Response

1. When Caden claims that the trench is 6.8 miles deep, how does the Captain respond?

2. What map does the Navigator draw for Caden?

3. What famous sculpture does Caden see and relate to when he is in Las Vegas?

Chapters 31-60

Reading Check

1. What does Caden lie about to his father?

2. Who is Calliope?

3. What does Shelley think is wrong with Caden?

4. How does the ship transform physically?

Multiple Choice

1. What challenge does the Captain insist that Caden complete?

A) jumping from the crow’s nest

B) polishing the pole at the front of the ship

C) helping Carlyle mop the ship deck

D) steering the ship overnight during a storm

2. What title/job does the Captain give Caden?

A) the Lore Master

B) the Master of the Treasury

C) Artist in Residence

D) Keeper of the Keys

3. According to the voice in Caden’s head, why should he destroy his neighbor’s sprinklers?

A) because they will flood the lawn in the night

B) because they are actually snakes

C) because they are destroying the earth’s water supplies

D) because they are transport pipes for evil spirits

4. What do the black widow webs mirror in Caden’s life?

A) his lack of control

B) his deadly gift

C) his fierce desire to protect his family

D) his loner status

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. What does Caden’s memory about the boy in second grade say about awareness of his mental condition?

2. How does the Captain punish Caden for his attitude and report about the Marianas Trench?

3. How does Caden’s father’s driving without a rear-view mirror reflect Caden’s inner struggle?

4. What does the Captain blame Carlyle and the Parrot for doing to Caden?

Chapters 61-90

Reading Check

1. What happens when the Captain slashes one of the ship’s sails?

2. What does Caden refuse to do at his first therapist’s office?

3. Who is “the Navigator” at the hospital?

4. What do the crewmen do to Caden on the ship?

Multiple Choice

1. In Chapter 61, Caden compares his head to a “check engine” light on a car: “No one sees it but the passengers--and only if they’re really looking for it, or when the light gets so bright and so hot that it melts the can and sets the whole car on fire.” Which statement best fits what this quote is saying about mental illness?

A) It only impacts the person who has the illness.

B) It’s hard for others without mental illness to see how severe it is.

C) Only the person with the mental illness can repair its damage.

D) Mental illness should be discussed more in communities.

2. What does the Captain say about the creatures that follow the ship?

A) “I defeated them once and I’ll defeat them again.”

B) “Great men of the sea must never abandon their beasts!”

C) “Great men of the sea must never abandon their ship!”

D) “They’re just waves—the monster is in yer head.”

3. Being under psychoactive medication reminds Caden of what?

A) Star Trek

B) Alice in Wonderland

C) The Yellow Submarine

D) The Twilight Zone

4. What does Hal have in common with Caden?

A) They both see the connections between everything and everyone.

B) They went to the same school in the past.

C) They are both afraid of the Parrot.

D) They both feel a connection with Calliope.

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. What does Caden see whenever he closes his eyes?

2. With what task are both the Parrot and the Captain asking for Caden’s help?

3. What warning does the Captain offer Caden regarding the White Plastic Kitchen?

4. What conflict does Caden think will annihilate him?

Chapters 91-120

Reading Check

1. Why does Caden throw his plate at the wall?

2. What does the Parrot offer Caden for his loyalty?

3. What does Callie do all day?

4. Which patient grew up in foster care because of their mother?

Multiple Choice

1. With what literary character does Caden empathize?

A) Don Quixote

B) Robin Hood

C) Dr. Jekyll

D) Jane Eyre

2. Where is the key to the forecastle kept?

A) in the back of the cannon

B) under Calliope’s feet

C) behind the captain’s eye

D) in a box at the bottom of the ship

3. Which quote best supports the novel’s theme of Victimhood?

A) “‘I can give you a gift of unlimited horizons,’” the Parrot squawks loudly, “‘but only if you do what must be done. The time has come.’” (Chapter 116)

B) “I imagine there’s a high-security dungeon where three hunchbacked witches stir a massive industrial cauldron of crap I don’t want to know about, but I must ingest on a daily basis.” (Chapter 115)

C) “They all think medicine should be magic, and they become mad at me when it’s not.” (Chapter 106)

D) “And although I have no use for the puzzle piece, I take it, and I thank her—because I know it’s not about how useless it is to me; it’s about her choice to part with it.” (Chapter 101)

4. What does the Captain tell Caden about the Abyssal Serpent?

A) He has conquered it many times before.

B) It is not as deadly as the White Whale.

C) It is a figment of Caden’s imagination.

D) It will follow Caden until one of them dies.

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. Caden starts drawing pictures that represent how the other patients feel. What growth does this show in his journey?

2. What frustrates Callie’s family about her mental illness?

3. What does Dr. Poirot continue to adjust?

4. What does Skye give to Caden?

Chapters 121-161

Reading Check

1. In another culture, Caden thinks he would have been regarded as what?

2. What does Poirot think is a victory about Caden recovering from his intestinal problem?

3. When Caden asks Carlyle if he is on the parrot or the Captain’s side, how does Carlyle respond?

4. What happens to Hal/the Navigator?

Multiple Choice

1. Which of the following quotes does NOT show an improvement in the patient’s mental health?

A) “Just because it’s a long voyage, it doesn’t mean you’re on it forever.” (Chapter 132)

B) “I’m evolving, it’s the thing; I’m a god become a constellation. [...] Death is a small sacrifice to become immortal.” (Chapter 136)

C) “I don’t think God gave us this any more than he gives a little kid cancer, or makes poor people lottery winners,” I say. “If anything, he gives us courage to deal.” (Chapter 121)

D) “But you have to process it and move on. Live your life, otherwise he took your future away from you, too.” (Chapter 124)

2. Why does Caden shoot the Parrot?

A) for trying to push the Captain overboard

B) for taking away the key to Calliope’s lock

C) for lying to him about the Captain

D)for letting the Navigator commit suicide

3. Which action shows Caden’s mental decline?

A) He stops taking his pills.

B) He is glad to not talk to Carlyle anymore.

C) He doesn’t show sadness for Hal’s death.

D) He asks for his parents to not visit him.

4. Whom does Carlyle find at the bottom of the sea?

A) the Navigator

B) the Parrot

C) Calliope

D) his sister, Mackenzie

5. What ends up rescuing Caden from the Abyssal Serpent?

A) The Parrot fights off the Serpent.

B) The Serpent is distracted by the ship and Caden escapes.

C) He finds the pill he had refused to take in his pocket.

D) He uses a blue puzzle piece in his pocket.

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 Caden frustrated with Alexa in group therapy?

2. What horrible realization does Caden have about his parents?

3. The Parrot tells Caden in Chapter 154, “We can lead a horse to water—we can even make him drink. But to keep drinking, well, that’s up to the horse, the horse, of course, of course.” What is the Parrot saying about treating patients’ mental health?

4. What does Caden realize about the Abyssal Serpent at the very end of the book?