Test 4 · How to learn spellings that stick

What would happen if Lucas learned five words a night and reviewed old ones?

Mova's choice: option 2 · The right answer: option 1 · wrong ✗ · Who acts: Lucas · What happens: happen, learn, review · To what, where: five words, old ones

This is test 4 of lesson 15 «How to learn spellings that stick» of the English 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	What	what	PRON	PronType=Int	3 happen	nsubj
2	would	would	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	3 happen	aux
3	happen	happen	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	root	root
4	if	if	SCONJ	_	6 learned	mark
5	Lucas	Lucas	PROPN	Number=Sing	6 learned	nsubj
6	learned	learn	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	3 happen	advcl
7	five	five	NUM	NumForm=Word NumType=Card	8 words	nummod
8	words	word	NOUN	Number=Plur	6 learned	obj
9	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	10 night	det
10	night	night	NOUN	Number=Sing	6 learned	obl:unmarked
11	and	and	CCONJ	_	12 reviewed	cc
12	reviewed	review	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	6 learned	conj
13	old	old	ADJ	Degree=Pos	14 ones	amod
14	ones	one	NOUN	Number=Plur	12 reviewed	obj
15	?	?	PUNCT	_	3 happen	punct

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	when	roles by
1	happen	would				vn occur-48.3-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme
2	learn a condition, not said to happen	past	Lucas	five words	night	vn learn-14-2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent word=Topic
3	review	past	Lucas not said here	old ones		vn assessment-34.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent one=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 · ✓ the right answer

He'd remember more of them for longer

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	He	he	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	3 remember	nsubj
2	'd	would	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	3 remember	aux
3	remember	remember	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	root	root
4	more	more	ADJ	Degree=Cmp	3 remember	obj
5	of	of	ADP	_	6 them	case
6	them	they	PRON	Case=Acc Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs	4 more	nmod
7	for	for	ADP	_	8 longer	case
8	longer	long	ADV	Degree=Cmp	3 remember	obl

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	remember	would	He	more of them					vn characterize-29.2-1-1 «NP V NP S_ING»: agent=Agent more=Theme

Option 2 · ← Mova's choice

He'd learn fewer words in total

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	He	he	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	3 learn	nsubj
2	'd	would	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	3 learn	aux
3	learn	learn	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	root	root
4	fewer	few	ADJ	Degree=Cmp	5 words	amod
5	words	word	NOUN	Number=Plur	3 learn	obj
6	in	in	ADP	_	7 total	case
7	total	total	ADJ	Degree=Pos	3 learn	nmod

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	learn	would	He	fewer words		total			vn learn-14-2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent word=Topic

Option 3

Nothing different from cramming

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	Nothing	nothing	PRON	Number=Sing PronType=Neg	root	root
2	different	different	ADJ	Degree=Pos	1 Nothing	amod
3	from	from	SCONJ	_	4 cramming	mark
4	cramming	cram	VERB	Tense=Pres VerbForm=Part	2 different	advcl

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	cram	gerund							vn learn-14-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent

Option 4

He would forget them all faster, because old words get in the way of new ones

The tree, 16 words

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	He	he	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	3 forget	nsubj
2	would	would	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	3 forget	aux
3	forget	forget	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	root	root
4	them	they	PRON	Case=Acc Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs	3 forget	obj
5	all	all	DET	PronType=Tot	6 faster	det
6	faster	fast	ADJ	Degree=Cmp	3 forget	advmod
7	,	,	PUNCT	_	11 get	punct
8	because	because	SCONJ	_	11 get	mark
9	old	old	ADJ	Degree=Pos	10 words	amod
10	words	word	NOUN	Number=Plur	11 get	nsubj
11	get	get	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	3 forget	parataxis
12	in	in	ADP	_	14 way	case
13	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	14 way	det
14	way	way	NOUN	Number=Sing	11 get	obl
15	of	of	ADP	_	17 ones	case
16	new	new	ADJ	Degree=Pos	17 ones	amod
17	ones	one	NOUN	Number=Plur	14 way	nmod

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	forget	would	He	them = they					tree rules
2	get	present	old words			the way of new ones			vn comprehend-87.2-1 «NP V S_ING»: agent=Experiencer

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/english/15-how-to-learn-spellings-that-stick/t4/