Exam question 3 · Alarms, stopwatches and how long a second is

Whereas one competitor records 12.4 seconds and another 11.9 seconds, identify the faster competitor and the margin.

Mova's choice: option 1 · The right answer: option 2 · wrong ✗ · Who acts: one competitor, you · What happens: record, identify · To what, where: faster competitor

This is exam question 3 of lesson 105 «Alarms, stopwatches and how long a second is» 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	Whereas	whereas	SCONJ	_	4 records	mark
2	one	one	NUM	NumForm=Word NumType=Card	3 competitor	nummod
3	competitor	competitor	NOUN	Number=Sing	4 records	nsubj
4	records	record	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	12 identify	advcl
5	12.4	12.4	NUM	NumForm=Digit NumType=Card	6 seconds	nummod
6	seconds	second	NOUN	Number=Plur	4 records	obj
7	and	and	CCONJ	_	10 seconds	cc
8	another	another	DET	PronType=Ind	10 seconds	det
9	11.9	11.9	NUM	NumForm=Digit NumType=Card	10 seconds	nummod
10	seconds	second	NOUN	Number=Plur	6 seconds	conj
11	,	,	PUNCT	_	4 records	punct
12	identify	identify	VERB	Mood=Imp VerbForm=Fin	root	root
13	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	15 competitor	det
14	faster	fast	ADJ	Degree=Cmp	15 competitor	amod
15	competitor	competitor	NOUN	Number=Sing	12 identify	obj
16	and	and	CCONJ	_	18 margin	cc
17	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	18 margin	det
18	margin	margin	NOUN	Number=Sing	15 competitor	conj
19	.	.	PUNCT	_	12 identify	punct

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	record	present	one competitor				second		vn scribble-25.2-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent
2	identify	imperative	you not said here	the faster competitor and the margin					vn characterize-29.2-1-1 «NP V NP S_ING»: agent=Agent competitor=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 latter, by five seconds

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	The	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	2 latter	det
2	latter	latter	ADJ	Degree=Pos	root	root
3	,	,	PUNCT	_	6 seconds	punct
4	by	by	ADP	_	6 seconds	case
5	five	five	NUM	NumForm=Word NumType=Card	6 seconds	nummod
6	seconds	second	NOUN	Number=Plur	2 latter	obl

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

Option 2 · ✓ the right answer

The latter, by half a second

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	The	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	2 latter	det
2	latter	latter	ADJ	Degree=Pos	root	root
3	,	,	PUNCT	_	7 second	punct
4	by	by	ADP	_	7 second	case
5	half	half	DET	NumForm=Word NumType=Frac PronType=Ind	7 second	det:predet
6	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	7 second	det
7	second	second	NOUN	Number=Sing	2 latter	conj

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

Option 3

The former, by one and a half seconds

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	The	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	5 one	det
2	former	former	ADJ	Degree=Pos	5 one	amod
3	,	,	PUNCT	_	5 one	punct
4	by	by	ADP	_	5 one	case
5	one	one	NUM	NumForm=Word NumType=Card	root	root
6	and	and	CCONJ	_	9 seconds	cc
7	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	8 half	det
8	half	half	NOUN	Number=Sing NumForm=Word NumType=Frac	9 seconds	compound
9	seconds	second	NOUN	Number=Plur	5 one	conj

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

Option 4

The former, by half a second

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	The	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	2 former	det
2	former	former	ADJ	Degree=Pos	root	root
3	,	,	PUNCT	_	7 second	punct
4	by	by	ADP	_	7 second	case
5	half	half	DET	NumForm=Word NumType=Frac PronType=Ind	7 second	det:predet
6	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	7 second	det
7	second	second	NOUN	Number=Sing	2 former	conj

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/105-alarms-stopwatches-how-long-a-second-is/e3/