Exam question 1 · Microbes: bacteria and viruses, good and bad

Identify the principal reason for which antibiotic medication is ineffective against the common cold.

Mova's choice: option 3 · The right answer: option 3 · right ✓ · Who acts: you, antibiotic medication · What happens: identify, be · To what, where: principal reason

This is exam question 1 of lesson 63 «Microbes: bacteria and viruses, good and bad» 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 reason	det
3	principal	principal	ADJ	Degree=Pos	4 reason	amod
4	reason	reason	NOUN	Number=Sing	1 Identify	obj
5	for	for	ADP	_	6 which	case
6	which	which	PRON	PronType=Rel	10 ineffective	obl
7	antibiotic	antibiotic	ADJ	Degree=Pos	8 medication	amod
8	medication	medication	NOUN	Number=Sing	10 ineffective	nsubj
9	is	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	10 ineffective	cop
10	ineffective	ineffective	ADJ	Degree=Pos	4 reason	acl
11	against	against	ADP	_	14 cold	case
12	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	14 cold	det
13	common	common	ADJ	Degree=Pos	14 cold	amod
14	cold	cold	NOUN	Number=Sing	10 ineffective	obl
15	.	.	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 reason					vn characterize-29.2-1-1 «NP V NP S_ING»: agent=Agent reason=Theme
2	is	present	antibiotic medication					for the principal reason; against the common cold; ineffective property	tree rules

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 common cold is not an infection of any kind, being caused by low temperature

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	3 cold	det
2	common	common	ADJ	Degree=Pos	3 cold	amod
3	cold	cold	NOUN	Number=Sing	7 infection	nsubj
4	is	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	7 infection	cop
5	not	not	PART	Polarity=Neg	7 infection	advmod
6	an	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	7 infection	det
7	infection	infection	NOUN	Number=Sing	root	root
8	of	of	ADP	_	10 kind	case
9	any	any	DET	PronType=Ind	10 kind	det
10	kind	kind	NOUN	Number=Sing	7 infection	nmod
11	,	,	PUNCT	_	13 caused	punct
12	being	be	AUX	Tense=Pres VerbForm=Part	13 caused	aux:pass
13	caused	cause	VERB	Tense=Past VerbForm=Part Voice=Pass	7 infection	conj
14	by	by	ADP	_	16 temperature	case
15	low	low	ADJ	Degree=Pos	16 temperature	amod
16	temperature	temperature	NOUN	Number=Sing	13 caused	obl

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	not is a	present	the common cold	a infection				of any kind	tree rules
2	cause	gerund · passive	low temperature						vn result-27.2 «NP V PP»: agent=Precondition

Option 2

The cold virus is too large for antibiotics to penetrate

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	The	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	3 virus	det
2	cold	cold	ADJ	Degree=Pos	3 virus	amod
3	virus	virus	NOUN	Number=Sing	6 large	nsubj
4	is	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	6 large	cop
5	too	too	ADV	_	6 large	advmod
6	large	large	ADJ	Degree=Pos	root	root
7	for	for	ADP	_	8 antibiotics	case
8	antibiotics	antibiotic	NOUN	Number=Plur	6 large	obl
9	to	to	PART	_	10 penetrate	mark
10	penetrate	penetrate	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	6 large	advcl

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	is	present	the cold virus					for antibiotics; large property	tree rules
2	penetrate	to-infinitive	the cold virus not said here						vn poke-19 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent

Option 3 · ← Mova's choice · ✓ the right answer

The common cold is caused by a virus, upon which antibiotics have no effect

The tree, 14 words

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	The	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	3 cold	det
2	common	common	ADJ	Degree=Pos	3 cold	amod
3	cold	cold	NOUN	Number=Sing	5 caused	nsubj:pass
4	is	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	5 caused	aux:pass
5	caused	cause	VERB	Tense=Past VerbForm=Part Voice=Pass	root	root
6	by	by	ADP	_	8 virus	case
7	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	8 virus	det
8	virus	virus	NOUN	Number=Sing	5 caused	obl
9	,	,	PUNCT	_	13 have	punct
10	upon	upon	ADP	_	11 which	case
11	which	which	PRON	PronType=Rel	13 have	obl
12	antibiotics	antibiotic	NOUN	Number=Plur	13 have	nsubj
13	have	have	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	5 caused	conj
14	no	no	DET	PronType=Neg	15 effect	det
15	effect	effect	NOUN	Number=Sing	13 have	obj

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	cause	present · passive	a virus	the common cold					vn engender-27.1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Precondition subject=Patient
2	have	present	antibiotics	no effect					vn birth-28.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent effect=Patient

Option 4

Antibiotics act only on fungi

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	Antibiotics	antibiotic	NOUN	Number=Plur	2 act	nsubj
2	act	act	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	root	root
3	only	only	ADV	_	5 fungi	advmod
4	on	on	ADP	_	5 fungi	case
5	fungi	fungus	NOUN	Number=Plur	2 act	obl

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	act	present	Antibiotics			fungi			vn act-114-1-1 «NP V PP.theme»: agent=Agent on fungus=Eventuality

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/63-microbes-bacteria-and-viruses/e1/