Test 6 · ★ · Evolution simply: why living things change over many gener…

Why would a fast-breeding creature like a bacterium evolve faster than an elephant?

Mova's choice: option 1 · The right answer: option 4 · wrong ✗ · Who acts: breeding creature · What happens: breed, evolve

This is test 6 · ★ of lesson 73 «Evolution simply: why living things change over many generations» 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	11 evolve	advmod
2	would	would	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	11 evolve	aux
3	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	7 creature	det
4	fast	fast	ADJ	Degree=Pos	6 breeding	amod
5	-	-	PUNCT	_	4 fast	punct
6	breeding	breed	VERB	VerbForm=Ger	7 creature	amod
7	creature	creature	NOUN	Number=Sing	11 evolve	nsubj
8	like	like	ADP	_	10 bacterium	case
9	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	10 bacterium	det
10	bacterium	bacterium	NOUN	Number=Sing	7 creature	nmod
11	evolve	evolve	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	root	root
12	faster	fast	ADV	Degree=Cmp	11 evolve	advmod
13	than	than	ADP	_	15 elephant	case
14	an	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	15 elephant	det
15	elephant	elephant	NOUN	Number=Sing	12 faster	obl
16	?	?	PUNCT	_	11 evolve	punct

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	breed	gerund							tree rules
2	evolve	would	a breeding creature like a bacterium					fast property	vn appear-48.1.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme

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

Big animals are too heavy to change

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	Big	big	ADJ	Degree=Pos	2 animals	amod
2	animals	animal	NOUN	Number=Plur	5 heavy	nsubj
3	are	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	5 heavy	cop
4	too	too	ADV	_	5 heavy	advmod
5	heavy	heavy	ADJ	Degree=Pos	root	root
6	to	to	PART	_	7 change	mark
7	change	change	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	5 heavy	advcl

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	is	present	Big animals					heavy property	tree rules
2	change	to-infinitive	Big animals not said here						vn dress-41.1.1-1-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent

Option 2

Elephants do not have genes

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	Elephants	elephant	NOUN	Number=Plur	4 have	nsubj
2	do	do	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	4 have	aux
3	not	not	PART	Polarity=Neg	4 have	advmod
4	have	have	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	root	root
5	genes	gene	NOUN	Number=Plur	4 have	obj

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	not have	present · do-support	Elephants	genes					vn birth-28.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent gene=Patient

Option 3

Bacteria are much cleverer than elephants and plan their changes

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	Bacteria	bacterium	NOUN	Number=Plur	4 cleverer	nsubj
2	are	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	4 cleverer	cop
3	much	much	ADV	_	4 cleverer	advmod
4	cleverer	clever	ADJ	Degree=Cmp	root	root
5	than	than	ADP	_	6 elephants	case
6	elephants	elephant	NOUN	Number=Plur	4 cleverer	obl
7	and	and	CCONJ	_	8 plan	cc
8	plan	plan	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	4 cleverer	conj
9	their	their	PRON	Case=Gen Number=Plur Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs	10 changes	nmod:poss
10	changes	change	NOUN	Number=Plur	8 plan	obj

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	other	roles by
1	is	present	Bacteria		than elephants; clever property	tree rules
2	plan	present	Bacteria not said here	Bacteria's changes		vn intend-61.2-1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent change=Topic
3	change		Bacteria = bacterium			nom change «event intransitive»: poss=agent

Option 4 · ✓ the right answer

Many more generations pass in the same time, so changes add up

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	Many	many	ADJ	Degree=Pos	3 generations	amod
2	more	more	ADJ	Degree=Cmp	3 generations	amod
3	generations	generation	NOUN	Number=Plur	4 pass	nsubj
4	pass	pass	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	root	root
5	in	in	ADP	_	8 time	case
6	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	8 time	det
7	same	same	ADJ	Degree=Pos	8 time	amod
8	time	time	NOUN	Number=Sing	4 pass	obl
9	,	,	PUNCT	_	12 add	punct
10	so	so	ADV	_	12 add	advmod
11	changes	change	NOUN	Number=Plur	12 add	nsubj
12	add	add	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	4 pass	conj
13	up	up	ADP	_	12 add	compound:prt

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	pass	present	Many more generations				time		vn occur-48.3-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme
2	add up speech: assert	present	changes						vn mix-22.1-2 «NP V ADVP-Middle»: agent=Patient

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/73-evolution-simply/t6/