View a FREE sample

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

Short Answer Questions

1. What or who is Andrei Vyborg?

2. How many distress signals have been received from ships that have gone down where the Starbuck is last reported?

3. How does Summer escape Dirk's hotel room?

4. What are the two most important things about the sub's condition that Dirk reports to Boland?

5. What is a "fo'c's'le"?

Short Essay Questions

1. Why is it important for ADM Hunter's men to get to the accident site when the gray van runs off the road before the Honolulu police?

2. Why is Dirk's helicopter a necessary component of the crew on the Martha Ann?

3. How does Adrian Hunter feel about her father? Use quotes from Chapter to support your position.

4. Why is ADM Hunter taking the step of having Dirk detailed officially to the 101st Salvage Fleet?

5. What are the different mysteries or questions that ADM Hunter enumerates as he reads the log?

6. In the hotel bar in Chapter 3, Adrian makes the statement: "Considering your amateur standing and less than mediocre talents, you're vastly overpriced. Whom is she speaking to and what does she mean?

7. What is a seamount?

8. Boland refers to himself as "the skipper" of the Martha Ann. What is a skipper?

9. How are the dead bodies described on the Lillie Marlene? How does this description contribute to the myth of the Pacific Vortex?

10. Other than the submarine not being wholly flooded, what is the single most important fact that Dirk relays over the Starbuck's radio to the Martha Ann and why is it of the utmost significance?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Examined carefully, the association between Dirk's reason for visiting to the Polynesian history museum and George Papaaloa's story of Kanoli is slightly obscure except as a plot mechanism. There is nothing Papaaloa relates in the story of Kanoli to suggest that it is related to the Pacific Vortex. The relevance of this revelation seems somewhat abstract. This is especially true since the Vortex has only been "operational" for about 40 years. Rewrite this episode using the essence of the legend of Kanoli as it stands but add elements that allow the two stories to appear related, making the transition from one to the other more smoothly.

Essay Topic 2

Dirk Pitt's National Underwater and Marine Agency actually exists. Clive Cussler founded it and it is run by himself and his son. What are the differences between the real NUMA and Dirk Pitt's NUMA? How are the character of Dirk Pitt and his NUMA representative of perhaps a deep seeded fantasy for the author, things he would really like to do and have exist? Are perhaps some of the events in the story autobiographical or merely a dream?

Essay Topic 3

Review the excerpts in Chapter 2 with the knowledge from Chapter 8 that the log is not written by CDR Dupree. What are some oddities, some of them enumerated by ADM Hunter, that clearly show a lack of knowledge about the Navy, submarines, or Dupree, that would have triggered skepticism if not read with the preconceived notion that the log is authentic?

(see the answer keys)

This section contains 1,232 words (approx. 5 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample