Your Points:

___/14 San Pasqual Academy

English 9 & 10 - Ms. Priester
“Notes from a Bottle” Questions
Fill in the blanks with correctly spelled words, or answer the questions. Remember to use complete sentences that restate the question
within the answer. If your answer is using below grade-level handwriting or missing capitalization and punctuation, you will
automatically lose half-credit for that response. If it fails to meet both of those criteria, the problem will not be graded.

Comprehension – Do you understand what you read?

1. Read each statement, and then decide if it is true or false. Circle the first letter of your choice. If it
is true, also write the page number where the story supports the statement.
a. The narrator is trapped in his apartment building. T or F ____
b. The narrator explains the cause of the disaster that has struck New York City. T or F ____
c. The narrator sees the mayor of New York City. T or F ____
d. Bodies float by the narrator’s apartment building. T or F ____
e. At the story’s end, the building’s residents retreat to the roof. T or F ____
f. Langford and the narrator escape in a boat. T or F ____
(__/3)
Interpretation – Can you analyze what you read?
2. What inferences can you make about each of the following ambiguities in the story? Give at least
one detail from the story to support your inference.
a. What is the cause of the flood?
________________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________(__/1)
b. How widespread is the flood?
________________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________(__/1)
c. What is the outcome for the narrator and his friends?
________________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________(__/1)

3. What do the title and subtitle add to the readers’ knowledge of the story?
______________________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________________(__/2)

4. In the story, the mood changes from festive to dark and hopeless. Find a quote to support each of
these moods. You can just copy the quote surrounded by quotation marks instead of writing
complete sentences.
a. festive ___________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________(__/1)

N.Priester 11/30/2009
 San Pasqual Academy
English 9 & 10 - Ms. Priester
b. dark and hopeless
___________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________(__/1)

5. The author, James Stevenson, chose to write this story in first-person point of view. How does
this add to the ambiguity? (If you forgot what first-person point of view is, look on page 987.)
______________________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________________(__/2)

6. What do you think is the author’s purpose in this story? Explain. (Hint: The Meet the Writer
feature on page 378 may give you some help.)
______________________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________________(__/2)

N.Priester 11/30/2009