Exam question 3 · Balance in a food web

Whereas a predator disappears from a habitat, determine the usual consequence for its prey.

Mova's choice: option 1 · The right answer: option 2 · wrong ✗ · Who acts: predator, you · What happens: disappear, determine · To what, where: habitat, usual consequence

This is exam question 3 of lesson 30 «Balance in a food web» 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 disappears	mark
2	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	3 predator	det
3	predator	predator	NOUN	Number=Sing	4 disappears	nsubj
4	disappears	disappear	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	9 determine	advcl
5	from	from	ADP	_	7 habitat	case
6	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	7 habitat	det
7	habitat	habitat	NOUN	Number=Sing	4 disappears	obl
8	,	,	PUNCT	_	4 disappears	punct
9	determine	determine	VERB	Mood=Imp VerbForm=Fin	root	root
10	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	12 consequence	det
11	usual	usual	ADJ	Degree=Pos	12 consequence	amod
12	consequence	consequence	NOUN	Number=Sing	9 determine	obj
13	for	for	ADP	_	15 prey	case
14	its	its	PRON	Case=Gen Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs	15 prey	nmod:poss
15	prey	prey	NOUN	Number=Sing	12 consequence	nmod
16	.	.	PUNCT	_	9 determine	punct

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	disappear	present	a predator			a habitat			vn disappearance-48.2-1 «NP V PP»: agent=Theme from habitat=Initial_Location
2	determine	imperative	you not said here	the usual consequence				for predator's prey	vn discover-84 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent consequence=Topic

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 prey usually declines in number

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	The	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	2 prey	det
2	prey	prey	NOUN	Number=Sing	4 declines	nsubj
3	usually	usually	ADV	_	4 declines	advmod
4	declines	decline	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	root	root
5	in	in	ADP	_	4 declines	compound:prt
6	number	number	NOUN	Number=Sing	4 declines	obj

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	decline in	present	the prey	number				usually property	vn reject-77.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent number=Theme

Option 2 · ✓ the right answer

The prey usually increases in number

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	The	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	2 prey	det
2	prey	prey	NOUN	Number=Sing	4 increases	nsubj
3	usually	usually	ADV	_	4 increases	advmod
4	increases	increase	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	root	root
5	in	in	ADP	_	4 increases	compound:prt
6	number	number	NOUN	Number=Sing	4 increases	obj

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	increase in	present	the prey	number				usually property	vn caused_calibratable_cos-45.6.2-1 «NP V NP.patient»: agent=Causer number=Patient

Option 3

The prey usually departs the habitat

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	The	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	2 prey	det
2	prey	prey	NOUN	Number=Sing	4 departs	nsubj
3	usually	usually	ADV	_	4 departs	advmod
4	departs	depart	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	root	root
5	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	6 habitat	det
6	habitat	habitat	NOUN	Number=Sing	4 departs	obj

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	depart	present	the prey	the habitat				usually property	vn escape-51.1-1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Theme habitat=Initial_Location

Option 4

The prey usually remains unaltered

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	The	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	2 prey	det
2	prey	prey	NOUN	Number=Sing	4 remains	nsubj
3	usually	usually	ADV	_	4 remains	advmod
4	remains	remain	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	root	root
5	unaltered	unaltered	ADJ	Degree=Pos	4 remains	xcomp

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	remain	present	the prey					unaltered, usually property	vn exist-47.1 «NP V»: agent=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/world/30-balance-in-food-webs/e3/