Exam question 2 · Is it fair? Why bad things happen to good people

Identify the term employed by philosophers to denote the question of why a good God permits suffering.

Mova's choice: option 1 · The right answer: option 4 · wrong ✗ · Who acts: you, good God · What happens: identify, employ, denote, permit · To what, where: term, question, suffering

This is exam question 2 of lesson 75 «Is it fair? Why bad things happen to good people» 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 term	det
3	term	term	NOUN	Number=Sing	1 Identify	obj
4	employed	employ	VERB	Tense=Past VerbForm=Part Voice=Pass	3 term	acl
5	by	by	ADP	_	6 philosophers	case
6	philosophers	philosopher	NOUN	Number=Plur	4 employed	obl
7	to	to	PART	_	8 denote	mark
8	denote	denote	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	4 employed	advcl
9	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	10 question	det
10	question	question	NOUN	Number=Sing	8 denote	obj
11	of	of	SCONJ	_	16 permits	mark
12	why	why	ADV	PronType=Int	16 permits	advmod
13	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	15 God	det
14	good	good	ADJ	Degree=Pos	15 God	amod
15	God	God	PROPN	Number=Sing	16 permits	nsubj
16	permits	permit	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	10 question	acl
17	suffering	suffering	NOUN	Number=Sing	16 permits	obj
18	.	.	PUNCT	_	1 Identify	punct

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	other	roles by
1	identify	imperative	you not said here	the term		vn characterize-29.2-1-1 «NP V NP S_ING»: agent=Agent term=Theme
2	employ	participle		the term not said here	by philosophers	vn hire-13.5.3 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent
3	denote	to-infinitive		the question		vn indicate-78 «NP V NP»: agent=Pivot question=Topic
4	permit	present	a good God	suffering		vn admit-64.3-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent suffering=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

The golden rule

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	The	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	3 rule	det
2	golden	golden	ADJ	Degree=Pos	3 rule	amod
3	rule	rule	NOUN	Number=Sing	root	root

The frames reader finds no event or fact in this sentence.

Option 2

The communion of saints

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	The	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	2 communion	det
2	communion	communion	NOUN	Number=Sing	root	root
3	of	of	ADP	_	4 saints	case
4	saints	saint	NOUN	Number=Plur	2 communion	nmod

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	commune		saints						nom communion «act intransitive»: of=agent

Option 3

The categorical imperative

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	The	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	3 imperative	det
2	categorical	categorical	ADJ	Degree=Pos	3 imperative	amod
3	imperative	imperative	ADJ	Degree=Pos	root	root

The frames reader finds no event or fact in this sentence.

Option 4 · ✓ the right answer

The problem of evil

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	The	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	2 problem	det
2	problem	problem	NOUN	Number=Sing	root	root
3	of	of	ADP	_	4 evil	case
4	evil	evil	NOUN	Number=Sing	2 problem	nmod

The frames reader finds no event or fact in this sentence.

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/75-is-it-fair-why-bad-things-happen-to-good-people/e2/