New here? Just sign up with Google — your account includes Matilda, our gift book, forever.
The Sea of Monsters · Garden Heights
Part 1
for The Sea of Monsters · Part 1 · Chapters 1–3
8 Parts40 min
What Happens in Part 1
Part 1 opens with a dream in which Grover Underwood is trapped somewhere dark and calling for Percy Jackson. Awake, Percy is finishing seventh grade at Meriwether College Prep, where the only person on his side is Tyson, a huge, gentle boy with no home whom other students treat badly. A dodgeball game against a group of oversized new students turns into an attack: they are Laistrygonians, the cannibal giants of Greek myth, and they throw flaming cannonballs. Percy fights with Riptide, Annabeth Chase arrives with her cap of invisibility, and Tyson stands in the fire without being burned. Afterward Annabeth explains why she came: Thalia’s pine tree, the source of the magical border around Camp Half-Blood, has been poisoned, and monsters are crossing the boundary. They ride to camp in the Gray Sisters’ taxi, where Percy seizes the single eye the three drivers share and trades it for information. What he gets is a set of numbers nobody can explain yet.
Foreshadowing dreams, a first-person voice, and allusion to older myth
Cross-Curricular
Sea hazards behind monster legends: reefs, straits, whirlpools, and squalls
Chapter Summary
Ch.
What happens
Ch.1
A Dream That Will Not Wait — Percy Jackson opens the novel with a nightmare in which Grover Underwood, wearing a wedding dress, is trapped in a dark place and calls out for help before Percy can reach him. Awake, Percy is finishing seventh grade at Meriwether College Prep, a school that calls its methods progressive and mostly lets students do as they please. His only friend there is Tyson, a very large, gentle boy who has no home and whom other students treat badly. Matt Sloan and a group of unusually big new students set up a dodgeball game against Percy and Tyson.
Ch.2
Dodgeball with Cannibals — the new students drop their disguises and reveal themselves as Laistrygonians, the cannibal giants of Greek myth, who throw flaming cannonballs instead of rubber balls. Percy fights with Riptide while Tyson, who should have been burned, stands in the fire without a mark on him. Annabeth Chase arrives wearing her cap of invisibility and helps finish the giants off. The gym is wrecked, Percy is blamed for the destruction, and the three of them run.
Ch.3
The Taxi of the Gray Sisters — Annabeth explains that Camp Half-Blood is in serious trouble: Thalia’s pine tree, the source of the magical border, has been poisoned, and monsters are getting through. To reach camp fast they summon the Gray Sisters’ taxi, driven by three ancient women who share one eye and one tooth and squabble over both while the car hurtles through traffic. Percy grabs the eye and trades it back for information; the sisters shout a set of numbers — thirty, thirty-one, seventy-five, twelve — that means nothing to him yet. The taxi leaves them at the bottom of Half-Blood Hill.
Part 1
Vocabulary
Study 10 key words from Chapters 1–3, then answer each question.
🌊Knowledge Bank · The Words Sailors Used for Danger
Language · Vocabulary of the SeaBefore charts were accurate, a crew’s survival depended on precise language for water. A reef is a ridge of rock or coral rising close enough to the surface to tear open a hull. A shoal is a shallow bank of sand or gravel that can shift between one voyage and the next. A squall is a sudden, violent wind that arrives with almost no warning and passes quickly. A strait is a narrow passage between two larger bodies of water, where tides speed up because the same volume of sea must squeeze through a smaller opening. Sailors also spoke of a lee shore, the coastline that a wind pushes a ship toward, which is why an empty beach could be more frightening than open water. Each of these words names a specific way the sea takes ships, and each one turns up inside some monster story. When a legend describes a creature that waits in one fixed place and seizes whatever passes, it is usually describing a hazard.
ominousadj.Ch.1
Giving the feeling that something bad is about to happen
“The dream leaves Percy with an ominous feeling he cannot shake.”
progressiveadj.Ch.1
Favoring new methods instead of traditional ones
“The school calls its rules progressive and supervises almost nothing.”
tauntv.Ch.1
To mock someone with insulting words meant to provoke
“Matt Sloan and his friends taunt Tyson whenever a teacher looks away.”
barragen.Ch.2
A heavy, continuous attack of thrown or fired objects
“A barrage of burning cannonballs crosses the gym floor.”
immuneadj.Ch.2
Not affected by something that harms other people
“Tyson seems immune to heat that would injure anyone else.”
retreatv.Ch.2
To move back and away from danger
“The three of them retreat through the smoke before help arrives.”
direadj.Ch.3
Extremely serious and urgent
“Annabeth describes the camp’s situation in dire terms.”
deterioratev.Ch.3
To become steadily worse over time
“The border will deteriorate further as the poisoned tree weakens.”
hurtlev.Ch.3
To move very fast in a way that seems out of control
“The taxi hurtles between lanes while its drivers argue.”
squabblev.Ch.3
To argue noisily about something unimportant
“The sisters squabble over whose turn it is to hold the eye.”
ⓘ The vocabulary words in this list are selected to help you understand and complete this workbook. Some may not appear verbatim in the original novel.
1A sign that suggests something bad is coming is ___.Ch.1
2‘Immune’ describes a person who is easily harmed by a particular danger.Ch.2
3A school that favors new methods over traditional ones calls itself ___.Ch.1
4Fill in each blank with the correct word.Ch.1–2
Word choices:barragetauntretreatominous- some words will not be used
A steady of cannonballs crosses the gym.
Bullies the students they have singled out.
5‘Retreat’ can mean to move back and away from a danger.Ch.2
6A situation that is extremely serious and urgent is ___.Ch.3
7‘Deteriorate’ means to become steadily stronger and healthier.Ch.3
8Fill in each blank with the correct word.Ch.3
Word choices:squabblehurtledeteriorateimmune- some words will not be used
The sisters over a single shared eye.
A cannonball can the length of a gym.
9Someone unharmed by a fire that injures others is ___ to it.Ch.2
10To argue noisily about something unimportant is to ___.Ch.3
Part 2
Comprehension
Show you understood what happens in Chapters 1–3.
📜Knowledge Bank · What a Monster Story Recorded
Maritime History · Hazard MemoryLong before written sailing directions existed, dangerous places were remembered through narrative. A story travels by mouth, survives retelling, and attaches a name to one exact point on a coast, which is precisely what a warning has to do. Researchers call durable information of that kind a mnemonic: a memorable package that protects a fact from being forgotten. The details that make a monster frightening also make the warning specific. A creature said to snatch six sailors from a passing deck tells a helmsman how close to the cliff he may safely steer. A whirlpool described as a mouth that swallows and spits three times a day is a rough tidal schedule. Even the fear is useful, because frightening stories are recalled more accurately and discourage a crew from testing the passage at the wrong hour. The tale is not a scientific report, yet it carries a real place, a real risk, and an instruction, which is why versions of it survive for centuries.
1What does Percy see in the dream that opens the novel?Ch.1
2Tyson is a wealthy classmate whose family has known Percy’s family for years.Ch.1
3What are the new students at Meriwether College Prep?Ch.1–2
4What happens during the fight that shocks the campers later?Ch.2
5Write the numbers 1–5 in the boxes to show the correct order of events in Chapters 1–3. Number 1 = what happens first.Ch.1–3
The new students throw flaming cannonballs during the dodgeball game.
Tyson walks through fire and helps defeat the giants.
The Gray Sisters shout a set of numbers before the ride ends.
Percy dreams that Grover is trapped and calling for help.
Annabeth explains that Thalia’s pine tree has been poisoned.
6Annabeth turns up at the school by chance while visiting a relative in the city.Ch.2
7Why does Annabeth say Camp Half-Blood is no longer safe?Ch.3
8What is unusual about the Gray Sisters?Ch.3
9Percy immediately understands what the numbers the sisters shout are for.Ch.3
10How does Percy force the Gray Sisters to tell him something?Ch.3
Part 3
Literary Elements
Understanding HOW and WHY Rick Riordan tells the story across Chapters 1–3.
📚Knowledge Bank · Why the Odyssey Keeps Returning
Literary Craft · Source Myth and AllusionRiordan is writing inside an old tradition. When a modern novel sends a hero across dangerous water toward home, it is standing on Homer’s Odyssey, the poem that gave European storytelling its map of sea hazards. A reference of that kind is an allusion: a writer borrows a figure the audience may already know and lets the older story supply meaning without extra explanation. The Laistrygonians who attack a school gym in Chapter 2 are not invented for this book; they destroy most of the fleet in the ancient poem. Readers who recognize them feel a second layer, and readers who do not still get a monster fight. Riordan also inherits the structure of the voyage itself, in which every obstacle is a separate place with its own rule. That shape lets an author introduce fresh dangers without building a new world for each one. The tradition supplies the coastline; the modern novelist supplies the traffic.
Foreshadowing
The opening dream shows Grover in trouble long before Percy can act on it, so the reader carries an unsolved problem into every later scene.
Allusion
Riordan borrows the Laistrygonians, the Gray Sisters, and the shape of a sea voyage from Greek myth, especially Homer’s Odyssey.
First-person narration
Percy tells his own story, so the reader gets his humor and his blind spots at the same time and never learns more than he does.
1The dream that opens the novel mainly works as ___.Ch.1
2Fill in each blank with the correct literary term.Ch.1–3
Word choices:foreshadowingallusionstanzameter- some words will not be used
An early hint about later events is .
A reference to an older story is an .
3Riordan’s use of the Laistrygonians from Greek myth is an example of ___.Ch.2
4A first-person narrator can report the private thoughts of every other character.Ch.1–3
5What does Percy’s joking narration add to these dangerous scenes?Ch.1–2
6Why does the novel open with a dream instead of the dodgeball game?Ch.1
7An allusion works best when the reader recognizes the source it points to.Ch.1–3
8Fill in each blank with the correct literary term.Ch.1–3
Word choices:narratorsuspenserhymesetting- some words will not be used
The character telling the story is its .
Questions left unanswered build .
9Riordan withholds the meaning of the Gray Sisters’ numbers to build suspense.Ch.3
10Across Chapters 1–3, monsters most often appear ___.Ch.1–3
Part 4
Think Deeper
Four deeper challenges — no single-word recall. Read, weigh the evidence, and reason it out.
⚖Knowledge Bank · Testing a Legend Against the Evidence
Critical Thinking · Claims and ProofSaying that a myth remembers a real hazard is a claim, and a claim needs evidence. The strongest cases combine several independent kinds of it. A location named in the story can be checked against a modern chart, and the Strait of Messina really does produce a dangerous tidal current where legend placed two monsters. Physical remains help as well: wreck sites, scattered cargo, and preserved specimens can turn a rumor into a record. A biological explanation counts when the described creature matches a species scientists later documented, as the giant squid eventually was. Weak reasoning runs the other way, starting from a colorful tale and hunting for anything that might fit it. That method can attach a legend to almost any coastline, because coastlines are dangerous everywhere. Careful readers therefore ask what the story would look like if it recorded nothing at all. A legend becomes evidence only after it has been checked.
Think back over these chapters. A dream arrives before the school year is even finished, and Percy wakes with a friend’s voice still asking for help. Then an ordinary gym class turns into a fight with cannibal giants who were sitting in class an hour earlier, and the boy everyone at school mocks walks through fire without a mark. Annabeth appears out of nowhere with a plan and bad news: the tree that guards Camp Half-Blood has been poisoned, and the border is thinning. A taxi driven by three quarreling sisters with one eye between them hurtles across the city, and Percy bargains with them the only way that works. He gets numbers instead of answers. Every danger in these chapters is hiding inside something ordinary, which is exactly how the old sea stories described the world.
Original passage written for Garden Heights — not a quotation from the novel.
1Claim: “Chapters 1–3 present monsters as dangers hidden inside ordinary places rather than creatures kept far away from people.” — choose the two details that best prove it.Claim & Evidence
2Real hazard a crew would face, or Story element built around it? Tap each detail to send it left or right.Sort into two
◄ Real hazard a crew would faceStory element built around it ►
3Match each cause to its result. For each cause, pick its result.Cause & Effect
A ship is lost near a narrow strait and a few sailors survive→
Sailors meet a huge unfamiliar animal far from land→
Percy dreams that Grover is trapped and calling out→
Thalia’s pine tree is poisoned→
4Fill both blanks to complete the reasoning.Build the Argument
Monster legends often preserve useful information because , which shows that .
Part 5
Standardized Test
Reading passage · Why Sailors Told Monster Stories · Central Ideas & Evidence · SAT & TOEFL-style practice
🎯 What this section practices
You already have these skills from the sections above — here they appear in the exact question types the SAT and TOEFL use. Read the passage (the highlighted words are tested below), then answer. Tap an answer to select it, then tap it again to confirm — you can change your choice until you confirm.
SATCentral Ideas — the main point of the passage as a whole
TOEFLFactual Information×2 — a fact stated directly in the passage
SATWords in Context×2 — what a word means the way this passage uses it
TOEFLVocabulary — the meaning of a tested word as this passage uses it
SATCommand of Evidence — which detail best supports a given claim
TOEFLNegative Factual Information — which statement is NOT supported by the passage
SATInference — a conclusion the passage supports without ever stating it outright
SATAuthor’s Purpose — what the author is trying to accomplish by writing this
For most of recorded history a crew left port with no engine, no radio, and no dependable chart of what lay beneath the hull. Reefs, fog, shifting sandbars, and sudden squalls could destroy a ship within minutes, and the few survivors rarely understood what had struck them. Stories filled that gap. A creature with a name and a fixed address was easier to remember, and easier to describe to a stranger, than a vague report of treacherous water.
Many of the most famous sea creatures sit directly on top of a genuine hazard. Charybdis, the swallowing whirlpool of Greek legend, marks a strait where tides squeeze between two shores and turn violently. Scylla, the many-headed monster on the opposite cliff, marks the rocks a helmsman struck while steering away from that current. The kraken of northern Europe most likely grew out of encounters with the giant squid, an animal science only verified in the modern era. In each case the danger existed first and the creature arrived afterward as a memorable label for it.
Reading legends this way still requires caution. Not every tale conceals a fact, because sailors also entertained one another, exaggerated, and repeated rumors nobody could check. Historians therefore look for corroborating evidence, such as wreck sites, tidal records, or a preserved specimen, before treating a story as a description of something real. What survives in every version is the purpose behind the telling: a warning about the places where the sea had already taken ships.
Original passage written for Garden Heights — not a quotation from the novel.
1What is the main idea of the passage?SAT · Central Ideas
2According to the passage, what did most crews lack for much of history?TOEFL · Factual Information
3In the first paragraph, treacherous most nearly means ___.SAT · Words in Context
4What does the passage say Scylla marks?TOEFL · Factual Information
5The word verified in the passage means that scientists ___.TOEFL · Vocabulary
6Which detail best supports the claim that a legend can record a real hazard?SAT · Command of Evidence
7In the third paragraph, corroborating most nearly means ___.SAT · Words in Context
8Which of the following does the passage NOT present as evidence historians use?TOEFL · Negative Factual Information
9What can be inferred about a legend with no supporting evidence?SAT · Inference
10Why does the author end with the purpose behind the telling?SAT · Author’s Purpose
Part 6 · Optional
Creative Writing
A bonus challenge to practice your English. Take your time and have fun with it.
About This Section
This writing task is optional and is not part of your auto-graded score. The feedback below checks only the basics — length, spelling, and grammar — not whether your ideas are right or wrong. It is meant for classroom discussion and creative practice, so feel free to use your imagination!
Writing Task — Part 1 “A Warning Nobody Forgets”
Sailors turned dangerous places into monsters so that a warning would be impossible to forget. Choose a real hazard you know well — a blind corner, a slippery stairwell, a stretch of road, a deep part of a pool — and invent the creature that legend would have put there. Describe the hazard accurately first, then the creature, and explain which details of your monster carry the real safety information. Write 6–10 sentences. End with the one-line warning a person would still repeat years later.
You can start with: “Everyone in my neighborhood knows to slow down where...”
0 / 40 words minimum
🗣 Teach It · Just for Fun (optional)
No right or wrong — close the screen and tell someone nearby what happened in this part. Can’t find anyone? Tell yourself out loud. The moment you teach it, you truly understand it.
Part 1 Complete!
You finished Chapters 1–3 of The Sea of Monsters.
Here are your auto-graded results:
-
points out of 100
Your Writing
Your writing was checked automatically for length, spelling, grammar, and whether you included the key parts of the scene. Scroll back to Part 5 anytime to read your feedback and improve your work.
Independent study guide by Garden Heights. Not affiliated with or endorsed by Rick Riordan. Contains original analysis only; no text from the novel is reproduced. Reference text: This workbook follows Rick Riordan’s classic text (the standard Puffin edition sold worldwide). Revised 2023 UK editions change some wording and may not match the vocabulary studied here.
