Exam question 3 · Communication: letters, phones, radio and the internet

Ascertain the speed at which radio waves travel.

Mova's choice: option 1 · The right answer: option 3 · wrong ✗ · Who acts: you, radio · What happens: ascertain, wave · To what, where: speed, travel

This is exam question 3 of lesson 100 «Communication: letters, phones, radio and the internet» of the world 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	Ascertain	ascertain	VERB	Mood=Imp VerbForm=Fin	root	root
2	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	3 speed	det
3	speed	speed	NOUN	Number=Sing	1 Ascertain	obj
4	at	at	SCONJ	_	7 waves	mark
5	which	which	DET	PronType=Int	6 radio	det
6	radio	radio	NOUN	Number=Sing	7 waves	nsubj
7	waves	wave	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	1 Ascertain	advcl
8	travel	travel	NOUN	Number=Sing	7 waves	obj
9	.	.	PUNCT	_	1 Ascertain	punct

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	ascertain	imperative	you not said here	the speed					vn discover-84 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent speed=Topic
2	wave	present	which radio	travel					vn wink-40.3.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent travel=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 · ← Mova's choice

The speed of a fast train

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	The	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	2 speed	det
2	speed	speed	NOUN	Number=Sing	root	root
3	of	of	ADP	_	6 train	case
4	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	6 train	det
5	fast	fast	ADJ	Degree=Pos	6 train	amod
6	train	train	NOUN	Number=Sing	2 speed	nmod

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

Option 2

The speed of sound, about one kilometre in three seconds

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	The	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	2 speed	det
2	speed	speed	NOUN	Number=Sing	root	root
3	of	of	ADP	_	4 sound	case
4	sound	sound	NOUN	Number=Sing	2 speed	nmod
5	,	,	PUNCT	_	8 kilometre	punct
6	about	about	ADV	_	7 one	advmod
7	one	one	NUM	NumForm=Word NumType=Card	8 kilometre	nummod
8	kilometre	kilometre	NOUN	Number=Sing	2 speed	conj
9	in	in	ADP	_	11 seconds	case
10	three	three	NUM	NumForm=Word NumType=Card	11 seconds	nummod
11	seconds	second	NOUN	Number=Plur	2 speed	nmod

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

Option 3 · ✓ the right answer

The speed of light, about 300,000 kilometres per second

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	The	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	2 speed	det
2	speed	speed	NOUN	Number=Sing	root	root
3	of	of	ADP	_	4 light	case
4	light	light	NOUN	Number=Sing	2 speed	nmod
5	,	,	PUNCT	_	8 kilometres	punct
6	about	about	ADV	_	7 300,000	advmod
7	300,000	300000	NUM	NumForm=Digit NumType=Card	8 kilometres	nummod
8	kilometres	kilometre	NOUN	Number=Plur	2 speed	nmod
9	per	per	ADP	_	10 second	case
10	second	second	NOUN	Number=Sing	8 kilometres	nmod

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

Option 4

About 300 kilometres per second

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	About	about	ADV	_	2 300	advmod
2	300	300	NUM	NumForm=Digit NumType=Card	3 kilometres	nummod
3	kilometres	kilometre	NOUN	Number=Plur	root	root
4	per	per	ADP	_	5 second	case
5	second	second	NOUN	Number=Sing	3 kilometres	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/world/100-communication-letters-to-internet/e3/