Carve the Mark
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40 free Carve the Mark trivia questions with answers — literature quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Veronica Roth followed her first bestselling series with something stranger: a galaxy where an invisible energy runs through every living thing and hands everyone a gift they did not choose. Carve the Mark throws together Akos, a quiet Thuvhesit boy stolen from his home, and Cyra, the feared sister of a Shotet tyrant, and asks whether two enemies can change what has been foretold for them. This quiz covers the whole book: the two leads and their gifts, the rulers, rebels and relatives around them, the customs and plants of their shared planet, and the cities and worlds beyond it. A final handful of questions looks at the author and at how the novel was written, published and received. It is written for readers who have finished the novel, for book clubs and classrooms working through it, and for anyone refreshing their memory before the sequel. Every answer comes with a short explanation, so even a wrong guess teaches you something about Roth's world.
30 of 40 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01What does Cyra Noavek's currentgift in Carve the Mark force her to endure and let her inflict by touch?
Constant pain
Constant pain is Cyra's burden and her weapon: dark shadows move under her skin, and Ryzek forces her to turn her touch on his enemies as a method of torture.
Q 02What unusual power lets Akos Kereseth touch Cyra Noavek without being hurt by her currentgift?
He blocks the current
He blocks the current: Akos's touch stills the energy behind every gift, so Cyra's shadows fall quiet. He first discovers it when he breaks free of his restraints during his capture.
Q 03On which part of the body do the Shotet in Carve the Mark carve a mark for each life lost?
The arm
The arm carries a Shotet's record of lives: each cut, made with a blade, stands for a life, and a hash through the mark sets a loss the bearer grieves apart from a kill.
Q 04Carve the Mark was written by Veronica Roth, the author of which bestselling trilogy set in a future Chicago?
Divergent
Divergent was Roth's debut, written while she was still a creative writing student, and its trilogy has sold more than 35 million copies worldwide.
Q 05Which 2018 novel by Veronica Roth is the sequel to Carve the Mark, continuing Akos and Cyra's story?
The Fates Divide
The Fates Divide arrived in April 2018 and widens the telling, giving chapters to Akos's sister as well as to the two leads.
Q 06The publisher of Carve the Mark described Veronica Roth's novel as being in the vein of which film saga?
Star Wars
Star Wars was the comparison made when the books were announced, with the plot summed up as the story of a boy who forms an unlikely alliance with an enemy.
Q 07Whose accidental killing by the young Cyra Noavek does Ryzek use to blackmail her in Carve the Mark?
Her mother
Her mother died when Cyra lashed out with her gift as a child. Ryzek keeps the secret as a threat, then tells the Shotet the truth to turn them against her.
Q 08Which brother of Akos Kereseth is kidnapped with him because he is fated to become Thuvhe's next oracle?
Eijeh
Eijeh is the prize of the raid: Ryzek wants an oracle of his own, hoping that visions of the future will show him a way to escape his fate.
Q 09Which word best describes Thuvhe, the homeland of Akos Kereseth in Veronica Roth's Carve the Mark?
Frozen
Frozen Thuvhe is so cold that its people wrap up in coats of pale kutyah fur and prize iceflowers, hardy blooms they brew into potions.
Q 10At what stage of life does a currentgift usually first emerge in Veronica Roth's Carve the Mark?
In adolescence
In adolescence, the current is said to take the shape of its bearer's character, so a gift can turn out for better or, as Cyra finds, for worse.
Q 11What can the Shotet tyrant Ryzek Noavek do with a deliberate touch, thanks to his currentgift in Carve the Mark?
Trade memories
To trade memories, Ryzek needs only a touch: he hands over his own in exchange for someone else's, and he tries it on Akos's captive brother in the hope of taking on an oracle's sight.
Q 12Ryzek Noavek is fated to fall to which family, whose twin daughters include the chancellor of Thuvhe?
Benesit
Benesit is the name Ryzek dreads: he forbids the Shotet to speak of his fate in public and seizes an oracle in the hope of finding a way around it.
Q 13Which enforcer of Ryzek Noavek kills the Kereseth boys' father during the raid that opens Carve the Mark?
Vas
Q 21In Carve the Mark the Thuvhesit call their shared planet Thuvhe, but what name do the Shotet use?
Urek
Urek is the Shotet name, but the rest of the galaxy says Thuvhe, because the Thuvhesit are the only people on the planet who are recognized as a nation.
Q 22What is the name of the Shotet capital in Carve the Mark, where the Noavek family rules from its manor?
Voa
Voa is home to the arena where Shotet challenges are settled, and the great ship the Shotet fly to other planets is said to be as big as the city itself.
Q 23Which interplanetary governing body in Carve the Mark is based aboard a large traveling spaceship?
The Assembly
The Assembly keeps order between the nation-planets, regulating commerce, weapons and travel, though some in the galaxy have begun to suspect it of corruption.
Vas is Ryzek's chief henchman, and Akos swears to kill him. The two finally meet beneath the arena at the novel's climax, where Akos keeps that promise.
Q 14Which twin sister of Ori, scarred across the face by a Shotet blade, is the chancellor of Thuvhe?
Isae
Isae was raised in hiding aboard a ship that roamed the galaxy, and she and Ori covered the lower half of their faces so that no one could tell the twins apart.
Q 15Which hallucination-causing plant fills the wide expanse that separates the Shotet from the Thuvhesit in Carve the Mark?
Feathergrass
Feathergrass is a tall grass whose visions make the border between the two peoples dangerous to cross, and the Shotet also ferment it into a drink.
Q 16What do the Shotet in Carve the Mark call their yearly voyage to scavenge on another planet?
The sojourn
The sojourn honors the Shotet's past as wanderers: after a week-long festival, a vast ship follows the current to a planet where they gather what its people no longer need.
Q 17Which water-covered planet does Ryzek Noavek choose for the Shotet's scavenging voyage, hoping to win an alliance?
Pitha
Pitha, the water planet, develops weapons, which is why Ryzek overrules the Examiners who would normally read the current to choose the destination.
Q 18Which red iceflower, toxic even in small doses, do the Thuvhesit of Carve the Mark celebrate at the Blooming?
Hushflower
Hushflower is poisonous in tiny quantities yet sacred to the Thuvhesit, and Akos has such a strong resistance to it that he can chew whole petals.
Q 19Which color do the Shotet of Carve the Mark hold sacred, while their Thuvhesit neighbors consider it cursed?
Blue
Blue reflects the shade of the current for the Shotet, so at their biggest festival it covers faces, hair, clothes and decorations.
Q 20In which poor Thuvhesit city, built around a hill with a temple at the top, does Akos Kereseth grow up?
Hessa
Hessa is one of Thuvhe's three major cities; most of its buildings are circular, with a military base at the foot of the hill and the temple at the summit.
Q 24After the rite of nemhalzak strips Cyra Noavek of her status, what may any Shotet do to her?
Duel her to the death
Duel her to the death: Cyra beats challenger after challenger in the arena until Ryzek's right-hand man almost kills her, and she is rescued just in time.
Q 25Which former Shotet ruler, long believed dead, is revealed to be alive at the end of Carve the Mark?
Lazmet
Lazmet, the father of Ryzek, was thought to have been killed in an attack on a scavenging voyage, and it was he who trained his son in cruelty.
Q 26Which rebel mechanic in Carve the Mark wears a patch over the eye that Ryzek Noavek took from her?
Teka
Teka can control electrical objects: she cuts the lights in a corridor of the great Shotet ship to ambush Cyra, and the two later join forces against Ryzek.
Q 27Which sister of Akos Kereseth has a currentgift that puts the people around her at ease?
Cisi
Cisi pays a price for her gift: she is unable to say anything that might make others uncomfortable, and she cannot cry in front of them.
Q 28Which Shotet in Carve the Mark asks Akos to kill his abusive father, Suzao, in an arena challenge?
Jorek
Jorek works in maintenance aboard the great Shotet ship; with Cyra's help, he and Akos slip Suzao sleeping potions to provoke him into issuing the challenge.
Q 29Which oracle of Thuvhe raises Akos Kereseth and teaches him to brew potions from iceflowers?
Sifa
Sifa is Thuvhe's sitting oracle. Every nation-planet has three, one rising, one sitting and one falling, and all of them see a fate at the same moment.
Q 30Because the Shotet tyrant uses her to torture his enemies, Cyra Noavek earns which grim nickname in Carve the Mark?
Ryzek's Scourge
Ryzek's Scourge is what the Shotet call Cyra, who has no friends when the story begins and fills her solitude with study, learning several languages.