Exam question 1 · Mountains of the world: snow leopards, high-flying geese,…

Identify the principal difficulty presented to animals by the atmosphere at high altitude.

Mova's choice: option 3 · The right answer: option 1 · wrong ✗ · Who acts: you · What happens: identify, present · To what, where: principal difficulty, animals

This is exam question 1 of lesson 183 «Mountains of the world: snow leopards, high-flying geese, condors and Everest spiders» of the biology course of Mova's primary school, asked in stiff, formal language. 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	Identify	identify	VERB	Mood=Imp VerbForm=Fin	root	root
2	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	4 difficulty	det
3	principal	principal	ADJ	Degree=Pos	4 difficulty	amod
4	difficulty	difficulty	NOUN	Number=Sing	1 Identify	obj
5	presented	present	VERB	Tense=Past VerbForm=Part Voice=Pass	4 difficulty	acl
6	to	to	ADP	_	7 animals	case
7	animals	animal	NOUN	Number=Plur	5 presented	obl
8	by	by	ADP	_	10 atmosphere	case
9	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	10 atmosphere	det
10	atmosphere	atmosphere	NOUN	Number=Sing	5 presented	obl
11	at	at	ADP	_	13 altitude	case
12	high	high	ADJ	Degree=Pos	13 altitude	amod
13	altitude	altitude	NOUN	Number=Sing	10 atmosphere	nmod
14	.	.	PUNCT	_	1 Identify	punct

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	identify	imperative	you not said here	the principal difficulty					vn characterize-29.2-1-1 «NP V NP S_ING»: agent=Agent difficulty=Theme
2	present	participle		the principal difficulty not said here	animals			by the atmosphere at high altitude	vn fulfilling-13.4.1 «NP V NP PP.recipient»: agent=Agent to animal=Recipient

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 · ✓ the right answer

Each breath contains less oxygen owing to the thinness of the air

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	Each	each	DET	PronType=Tot	2 breath	det
2	breath	breath	NOUN	Number=Sing	3 contains	nsubj
3	contains	contain	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	root	root
4	less	less	ADJ	Degree=Cmp	5 oxygen	amod
5	oxygen	oxygen	NOUN	Number=Sing	3 contains	obj
6	owing	owe	VERB	VerbForm=Ger	5 oxygen	acl
7	to	to	ADP	_	9 thinness	case
8	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	9 thinness	det
9	thinness	thinness	NOUN	Number=Sing	6 owing	obl
10	of	of	ADP	_	12 air	case
11	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	12 air	det
12	air	air	NOUN	Number=Sing	9 thinness	nmod

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	contain	present	each breath	less oxygen					vn comprise-107.2-2 «NP V NP»: agent=Pivot oxygen=Theme
2	owe	gerund	less oxygen not said here					to the thinness of the air goal	vn future_having-13.3 «NP V NP PP.goal»: agent=Agent to thinness=Goal

Option 2

The air is devoid of all gases

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	The	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	2 air	det
2	air	air	NOUN	Number=Sing	4 devoid	nsubj
3	is	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	4 devoid	cop
4	devoid	devoid	ADJ	Degree=Pos	root	root
5	of	of	ADP	_	7 gases	case
6	all	all	DET	PronType=Tot	7 gases	det
7	gases	gas	NOUN	Number=Plur	4 devoid	obl

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	is	present	the air					of all gases; devoid property	tree rules

Option 3 · ← Mova's choice

The air is warmer than at sea level, and warm air is harder to breathe

The tree, 15 words

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	The	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	2 air	det
2	air	air	NOUN	Number=Sing	4 warmer	nsubj
3	is	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	4 warmer	cop
4	warmer	warm	ADJ	Degree=Cmp	root	root
5	than	than	ADP	_	8 level	case
6	at	at	ADP	_	8 level	case
7	sea	sea	NOUN	Number=Sing	8 level	compound
8	level	level	NOUN	Number=Sing	4 warmer	obl
9	,	,	PUNCT	_	14 harder	punct
10	and	and	CCONJ	_	14 harder	cc
11	warm	warm	ADJ	Degree=Pos	12 air	amod
12	air	air	NOUN	Number=Sing	14 harder	nsubj
13	is	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	14 harder	cop
14	harder	hard	ADJ	Degree=Cmp	4 warmer	conj
15	to	to	PART	_	16 breathe	mark
16	breathe	breathe	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	14 harder	xcomp

#	verb	tense, mood	who	other	roles by
1	is	present	the air	than sea level; warm property	tree rules
2	is	present	warm air	hard property	tree rules
3	breathe	to-infinitive	warm air not said here		vn breathe-40.1.2-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent

Option 4

The air contains an excess of oxygen

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	The	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	2 air	det
2	air	air	NOUN	Number=Sing	3 contains	nsubj
3	contains	contain	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	root	root
4	an	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	5 excess	det
5	excess	excess	NOUN	Number=Sing	3 contains	obj
6	of	of	ADP	_	7 oxygen	case
7	oxygen	oxygen	NOUN	Number=Sing	5 excess	nmod

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	contain	present	the air	a excess of oxygen					vn comprise-107.2-2 «NP V NP»: agent=Pivot excess=Theme

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.

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