task
part of speech
noun (a task, tasks); verb (task, tasked — formal)
meaning for a pupil
1) A task is a piece of work that someone has to do, often given by someone else. tree →
2) To be tasked with something is to be given a job to do (formal). tree →
3) «Take someone to task» means to tell them off for something they did. tree →
sense in the lessons
In school teachers give «tasks»: «Your task is to write three sentences», «a reading task», «a maths task». Pupils learn to break a big task into small steps and check the task is finished. At home children have tasks such as feeding the pet. Phrases: «complete a task», «on task» (concentrating), «off task» (not working), «a difficult task», «task list».
examples
- Your first task is to read the story. tree →
- Feeding the cat is my task every morning. tree →
- Stay on task, please. tree →
- This task is harder than the last one. tree →
- Break a big task into smaller parts. tree →
- The class finished the task in ten minutes. tree →
- Each group had a different task. tree →
- The third task was the hardest. tree →
note
Plural: tasks. Countable: «a task», «two tasks». «Task» is more formal than «job» or «chore». In maths problems, if 4 children share 12 tasks equally, each does 12 ÷ 4 = 3.
In the corpora
- Burnout means being worn down by too much work and stress for too long, until even small tasks feel huge.
- Some tasks are moving to AI, new jobs appear too, and experts disagree on how much will change.
- Some jobs are changing as AI does some tasks, new jobs appear too, and experts disagree about how much will change.
- Starting a task before all the instructions are given often leads to mistakes.
- "Finds it hard to stay on task" means the pupil wastes time in class.
Trees and pragmatics
Every meaning and example of «task» parsed by Mova, each sentence with its dependency tree and frames.