Test 10 · ★ · Training and enrichment: keeping zoo animals busy and heal…

Why do rewards usually work better than punishments for teaching animals?

Mova's choice: option 1 · The right answer: option 4 · wrong ✗ · Who acts: rewards · What happens: work

This is test 10 · ★ of lesson 112 «Training and enrichment: keeping zoo animals busy and healthy» of the biology course of Mova's primary school. The page gives the question's syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause, then the 4 options as the student saw them, each with its tree and pragmatics. Every text is parsed by Mova itself. How the student answered it, with the score of every option and why: the test at school.

The question

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	Why	why	ADV	PronType=Int	5 work	advmod
2	do	do	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	5 work	aux
3	rewards	reward	NOUN	Number=Plur	5 work	nsubj
4	usually	usually	ADV	_	5 work	advmod
5	work	work	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=1 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	root	root
6	better	well	ADV	Degree=Cmp	5 work	advmod
7	than	than	ADP	_	8 punishments	case
8	punishments	punishment	NOUN	Number=Plur	5 work	obl
9	for	for	ADP	_	11 animals	case
10	teaching	teaching	NOUN	Number=Sing	11 animals	compound
11	animals	animal	NOUN	Number=Plur	8 punishments	nmod
12	?	?	PUNCT	_	5 work	punct

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	work	present · do-support	rewards					than punishments for teaching animals; usually, well property	vn employment-95.3 «NP V»: agent=Agent

One row per clause the reader finds. «not said here»: a role filled from the clause above. «roles by»: a VerbNet class and frame when one fits the verb, else the reader's rules on the tree.

The options

Option 1 · ← Mova's choice

Rewards make animals forget the lesson

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	Rewards	reward	NOUN	Number=Plur	2 make	nsubj
2	make	make	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	root	root
3	animals	animal	NOUN	Number=Plur	2 make	obj
4	forget	forget	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	2 make	xcomp
5	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	6 lesson	det
6	lesson	lesson	NOUN	Number=Sing	4 forget	obj

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	make	present	Rewards	animals					tree rules
2	forget	infinitive	animals not said here	the lesson					tree rules

Option 2

Animals cannot feel fear at all

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	Animals	animal	NOUN	Number=Plur	4 feel	nsubj
2	can	can	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	4 feel	aux
3	not	not	PART	Polarity=Neg	4 feel	advmod
4	feel	feel	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	root	root
5	fear	fear	NOUN	Number=Sing	4 feel	obj
6	at	at	ADP	_	7 all	case
7	all	all	DET	PronType=Tot	4 feel	obl

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	not feel	can	Animals	fear		all			vn hunt-35.1 «NP V NP PP.location»: agent=Agent fear=Theme at all=Location

Option 3

Punished animals always learn ten times faster than the rewarded ones

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	Punished	punish	VERB	Tense=Past VerbForm=Part Voice=Pass	2 animals	amod
2	animals	animal	NOUN	Number=Plur	4 learn	nsubj
3	always	always	ADV	PronType=Tot	4 learn	advmod
4	learn	learn	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	root	root
5	ten	ten	NUM	NumForm=Word NumType=Card	6 times	nummod
6	times	time	NOUN	Number=Plur	7 faster	obl:unmarked
7	faster	fast	ADJ	Degree=Cmp	4 learn	xcomp
8	than	than	ADP	_	11 ones	case
9	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	11 ones	det
10	rewarded	reward	VERB	Tense=Past VerbForm=Part Voice=Pass	11 ones	amod
11	ones	one	NOUN	Number=Plur	7 faster	obl

#	verb	tense, mood	who	other	roles by
1	punish	participle			vn prosecute-33.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent
2	learn	present	Punished animals	always, fast property	vn learn-14-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent
3	reward	participle			vn equip-13.4.2-1 «NP V NP.recipient»: agent=Agent

Option 4 · ✓ the right answer

The animal wants to repeat what brought a reward and is not afraid

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	The	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	2 animal	det
2	animal	animal	NOUN	Number=Sing	3 wants	nsubj
3	wants	want	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	root	root
4	to	to	PART	_	5 repeat	mark
5	repeat	repeat	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	3 wants	xcomp
6	what	what	PRON	PronType=Int	7 brought	nsubj
7	brought	bring	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	5 repeat	ccomp
8	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	9 reward	det
9	reward	reward	NOUN	Number=Sing	7 brought	obj
10	and	and	CCONJ	_	13 afraid	cc
11	is	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	13 afraid	cop
12	not	not	PART	Polarity=Neg	13 afraid	advmod
13	afraid	afraid	ADJ	Degree=Pos	3 wants	conj

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	other	roles by
1	want	present	the animal			vn want-32.1-1-1 «NP V NP S_INF»: agent=Pivot clause=Theme
2	repeat not said to happen	to-infinitive	the animal not said here			vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V how S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic
3	bring	past		a reward		vn bring-11.3-1 «NP V NP together»: agent=Agent reward=Theme
4	not is	present	the animal not said here		afraid property	tree rules

Text: the tests of Mova's primary school, written for Mova (world/data/school/), as the course runner gave them to the student. Trees: Mova's own parse — the en model on the CPU, when the site is built — not checked by a teacher; they may be wrong. Frames: Mova's frames reader (prag), each text read on its own. Elamur Cosmic License.

This page in Markdown → https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/questions/biology/112-training-and-enrichment/t10/