Exam question 1 · Active and passive voice, modal verbs
Identify the sentence composed in the passive voice.
Mova's choice: option 1 · The right answer: option 2 · wrong ✗ · Who acts: you · What happens: identify, compose · To what, where: sentence, passive voice
This is exam question 1 of lesson 32 «Active and passive voice, modal verbs» of the English 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 | 3 sentence | det |
| 3 | sentence | sentence | NOUN | Number=Sing | 1 Identify | obj |
| 4 | composed | compose | VERB | Tense=Past VerbForm=Part Voice=Pass | 3 sentence | acl |
| 5 | in | in | ADP | _ | 8 voice | case |
| 6 | the | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 8 voice | det |
| 7 | passive | passive | ADJ | Degree=Pos | 8 voice | amod |
| 8 | voice | voice | NOUN | Number=Sing | 4 composed | obl |
| 9 | . | . | 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 sentence | vn characterize-29.2-1-1 «NP V NP S_ING»: agent=Agent sentence=Theme | ||||
| 2 | compose | participle | the sentence not said here | the passive voice | vn create-26.4-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
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
Grandad is posting the letter.
The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)
| # | word | lemma | UPOS | features | head | relation |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Grandad | Grandad | PROPN | Number=Sing | 3 posting | nsubj |
| 2 | is | be | AUX | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin | 3 posting | aux |
| 3 | posting | post | VERB | Tense=Pres VerbForm=Part | root | root |
| 4 | the | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 5 letter | det |
| 5 | letter | letter | NOUN | Number=Sing | 3 posting | obj |
| 6 | . | . | PUNCT | _ | 3 posting | punct |
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | post | present · progressive | Grandad | the letter | vn send-11.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent letter=Theme |
Option 2 · ✓ the right answer
The letter was posted by Grandad.
The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)
| # | word | lemma | UPOS | features | head | relation |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | The | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 2 letter | det |
| 2 | letter | letter | NOUN | Number=Sing | 4 posted | nsubj:pass |
| 3 | was | be | AUX | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | 4 posted | aux:pass |
| 4 | posted | post | VERB | Tense=Past VerbForm=Part Voice=Pass | root | root |
| 5 | by | by | ADP | _ | 6 Grandad | case |
| 6 | Grandad | Grandad | PROPN | Number=Sing | 4 posted | obl |
| 7 | . | . | PUNCT | _ | 4 posted | punct |
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | post | past · passive | Grandad | the letter | vn send-11.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent subject=Theme |
Option 3
Grandad posted the letter.
The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)
| # | word | lemma | UPOS | features | head | relation |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Grandad | Grandad | PROPN | Number=Sing | 2 posted | nsubj |
| 2 | posted | post | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | root | root |
| 3 | the | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 4 letter | det |
| 4 | letter | letter | NOUN | Number=Sing | 2 posted | obj |
| 5 | . | . | PUNCT | _ | 2 posted | punct |
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | post | past | Grandad | the letter | vn send-11.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent letter=Theme |
Option 4
Grandad will post the letter.
The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)
| # | word | lemma | UPOS | features | head | relation |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Grandad | Grandad | PROPN | Number=Sing | 3 post | nsubj |
| 2 | will | will | AUX | VerbForm=Fin | 3 post | aux |
| 3 | post | post | VERB | VerbForm=Inf | root | root |
| 4 | the | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 5 letter | det |
| 5 | letter | letter | NOUN | Number=Sing | 3 post | obj |
| 6 | . | . | PUNCT | _ | 3 post | punct |
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | post | future | Grandad | the letter | vn send-11.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent letter=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.
This page in Markdown → https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/questions/english/32-active-and-passive-voice-modal-verbs/e1/