Test 11 · ★ · Rice, maize and potatoes: the plants that feed the world

Why are rice fields on hills built as steps?

Mova's choice: option 4 · The right answer: option 1 · wrong ✗ · What happens: be, build · To what, where: rice fields, hills

This is test 11 · ★ of lesson 345 «Rice, maize and potatoes: the plants that feed the world» 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	4 fields	advmod
2	are	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	4 fields	cop
3	rice	rice	NOUN	Number=Sing	4 fields	compound
4	fields	field	NOUN	Number=Plur	root	root
5	on	on	ADP	_	6 hills	case
6	hills	hill	NOUN	Number=Plur	4 fields	nmod
7	built	build	VERB	Tense=Past VerbForm=Part Voice=Pass	6 hills	acl
8	as	as	ADP	_	9 steps	case
9	steps	step	NOUN	Number=Plur	7 built	obl
10	?	?	PUNCT	_	4 fields	punct

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	is a	present		rice fields		hills			tree rules
2	build	participle		hills not said here				as steps	vn calibratable_cos-45.6.1 «NP.attribute V»: agent=Attribute

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 flat step can hold water

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	Each	each	DET	PronType=Tot	3 step	det
2	flat	flat	ADJ	Degree=Pos	3 step	amod
3	step	step	NOUN	Number=Sing	5 hold	nsubj
4	can	can	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	5 hold	aux
5	hold	hold	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	root	root
6	water	water	NOUN	Number=Sing	5 hold	obj

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	hold	can	each flat step	water					vn keep-15.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent water=Theme

Option 2

Steps keep the rice dry

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	Steps	step	NOUN	Number=Plur	2 keep	nsubj
2	keep	keep	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	root	root
3	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	5 dry	det
4	rice	rice	NOUN	Number=Sing	5 dry	compound
5	dry	dry	NOUN	Number=Sing	2 keep	obj

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	keep	present	Steps	the rice dry					vn keep-15.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent dry=Theme

Option 3

Steps make it easier to climb

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	Steps	step	NOUN	Number=Plur	2 make	nsubj
2	make	make	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	root	root
3	it	it	PRON	Case=Acc Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	2 make	obj
4	easier	easy	ADJ	Degree=Cmp	2 make	xcomp
5	to	to	PART	_	6 climb	mark
6	climb	climb	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	4 easier	xcomp

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	make	present	Steps	it				easy property	vn build-26.1-1 «NP.asset V NP»: agent=Asset it=Product
2	climb	to-infinitive							vn run-51.3.2 «NP V»: agent=Theme

Option 4 · ← Mova's choice

Rice grows only on stairs

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	Rice	rice	NOUN	Number=Sing	2 grows	nsubj
2	grows	grow	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	root	root
3	only	only	ADV	_	5 stairs	advmod
4	on	on	ADP	_	5 stairs	case
5	stairs	stair	NOUN	Number=Plur	2 grows	obl

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	grow	present	Rice			stairs			vn appear-48.1.1 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme on stair=Location

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/345-rice-maize-and-potatoes-the-plants-that-feed-the-world/t11/