Exam question 2 · What Christians believe: prayer, forgiveness, grace and he…

Identify the response consistent with the Christian understanding of petitionary prayer.

Mova's choice: option 2 · The right answer: option 3 · wrong ✗ · Who acts: you · What happens: identify, understand · To what, where: response, petitionary prayer

This is exam question 2 of lesson 22 «What Christians believe: prayer, forgiveness, grace and heaven» of the religion ethics 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 response	det
3	response	response	NOUN	Number=Sing	1 Identify	obj
4	consistent	consistent	ADJ	Degree=Pos	3 response	amod
5	with	with	ADP	_	8 understanding	case
6	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	8 understanding	det
7	Christian	Christian	ADJ	Degree=Pos	8 understanding	amod
8	understanding	understanding	NOUN	Number=Sing	4 consistent	obl
9	of	of	ADP	_	11 prayer	case
10	petitionary	petitionary	ADJ	Degree=Pos	11 prayer	amod
11	prayer	prayer	NOUN	Number=Sing	8 understanding	nmod
12	.	.	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 response					vn characterize-29.2-1-1 «NP V NP S_ING»: agent=Agent response=Theme
2	understand			petitionary prayer					nom understanding «cognition transitive»: of=patient

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

That prayer is efficacious only when uttered by clergy

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	That	that	DET	Number=Sing PronType=Dem	2 prayer	det
2	prayer	prayer	NOUN	Number=Sing	4 efficacious	nsubj
3	is	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	4 efficacious	cop
4	efficacious	efficacious	ADJ	Degree=Pos	root	root
5	only	only	ADV	_	7 uttered	advmod
6	when	when	ADV	PronType=Int	7 uttered	advmod
7	uttered	utter	VERB	Tense=Past VerbForm=Part Voice=Pass	4 efficacious	advcl
8	by	by	ADP	_	9 clergy	case
9	clergy	clergy	NOUN	Number=Sing	7 uttered	obl

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	is	present	that prayer					efficacious property	tree rules
2	utter speech: other	participle	that prayer not said here					by clergy	vn say-37.7-1 «NP V how S»: agent=Agent

Option 2 · ← Mova's choice

That God attends solely to prayers offered on Sundays in a church building

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	That	that	DET	Number=Sing PronType=Dem	2 God	det
2	God	God	PROPN	Number=Sing	3 attends	nsubj
3	attends	attend	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	root	root
4	solely	solely	ADV	_	3 attends	advmod
5	to	to	ADP	_	6 prayers	case
6	prayers	prayer	NOUN	Number=Plur	3 attends	obl
7	offered	offer	VERB	Tense=Past VerbForm=Part Voice=Pass	6 prayers	acl
8	on	on	ADP	_	9 Sundays	case
9	Sundays	Sunday	PROPN	Number=Plur	7 offered	obl:agent
10	in	in	ADP	_	13 building	case
11	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	13 building	det
12	church	church	NOUN	Number=Sing	13 building	compound
13	building	building	NOUN	Number=Sing	7 offered	obl

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	attend	present	that God					to prayers; solely property	vn caring-75.2-1-1 «NP V PP»: agent=Agent to prayer=Theme
2	offer	participle		prayers not said here		a church building	sunday		vn future_having-13.3 «NP V NP.theme (PP)»: agent=Agent

Option 3 · ✓ the right answer

That God attends to every prayer, the answer being yes, no or wait

The tree, 13 words

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	That	that	DET	Number=Sing PronType=Dem	2 God	det
2	God	God	PROPN	Number=Sing	3 attends	nsubj
3	attends	attend	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	root	root
4	to	to	ADP	_	6 prayer	case
5	every	every	DET	PronType=Tot	6 prayer	det
6	prayer	prayer	NOUN	Number=Sing	3 attends	obl
7	,	,	PUNCT	_	9 answer	punct
8	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	9 answer	det
9	answer	answer	NOUN	Number=Sing	6 prayer	conj
10	being	be	AUX	Tense=Pres VerbForm=Part	11 yes	cop
11	yes	yes	INTJ	Polarity=Pos	9 answer	nmod
12	,	,	PUNCT	_	15 wait	punct
13	no	no	DET	PronType=Neg	14 or	det
14	or	or	CCONJ	_	15 wait	cc
15	wait	wait	VERB	Mood=Imp VerbForm=Fin	3 attends	parataxis

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	attend	present	that God					to every prayer and the answer	vn caring-75.2-1-1 «NP V PP»: agent=Agent to prayer=Theme
2	wait	infinitive							vn exist-47.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme

Option 4

That God grants without exception every request made

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	That	that	DET	Number=Sing PronType=Dem	2 God	det
2	God	God	PROPN	Number=Sing	3 grants	nsubj
3	grants	grant	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	root	root
4	without	without	ADP	_	5 exception	case
5	exception	exception	NOUN	Number=Sing	3 grants	obl
6	every	every	DET	PronType=Tot	7 request	det
7	request	request	NOUN	Number=Sing	3 grants	obj
8	made	make	VERB	Tense=Past VerbForm=Part Voice=Pass	7 request	acl

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	grant	present	that God	every request				without exception	vn future_having-13.3 «NP V NP.theme (PP)»: agent=Agent request=Theme
2	make	participle		every request not said here					vn build-26.1-1 «NP.asset V NP»: agent=Asset

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/religion-ethics/22-prayer-forgiveness-grace-and-heaven/e2/