Ice Age: real sabre-tooths, ground sloths, glyptodonts and dodos
Tests: 5 of 11 right · Exam: 3 of 4 right · Kind: plain · Understood: 8 of 15 · Run: 2026-10-18, commit f3c23ea72
Lesson 131 of the biology course of Mova's primary school, as Mova's small model took its tests: it had read this lesson and the ones before it and learned from their exercises. Each test shows the options in the order the student saw them, its choice, the right answer, the score of every option and why it chose. The lesson itself, sentence by sentence with trees and pragmatics: the lesson in the corpora.
Every question of this lesson and each of its options parsed by Mova, with trees and pragmatics: the lesson's questions in the corpora.
Test 1 · wrong ✗
«3 mammoths n 2 sloths in the herd, how many trunks»
- 1. 6 — ← Mova's choice · no support
- 2. 3 — ✓ the right answer · no support
- 3. 5 — no support
- 4. 2 — no support
Why: No option found support in what it remembers, so it guessed: it took the first option shown. · the question and its options parsed, with trees and pragmatics
Test 2 · wrong ✗
A museum shows 4 Smilodon skulls. How many long sabre fangs are there in all?
- 1. 4 — ← Mova's choice · no support
- 2. 12 — no support
- 3. 16 — no support
- 4. 8 — ✓ the right answer · no support
Why: No option found support in what it remembers, so it guessed: it took the first option shown. · the question and its options parsed, with trees and pragmatics
Test 3 · wrong ✗
«my mate says Diego's just a tiger with big teeth» What is right?
- 1. No, Smilodon was not a tiger but a separate extinct branch of cats — ✓ the right answer · no support
- 2. Yes, and tigers still grow fangs that long when they get very old — no support
- 3. No, Diego was a kind of bear — ← Mova's choice · score 5
- 4. Yes, all sabre-tooths were tigers — no support
Why: It took the question to ask which statement is true. It chose option 3 with score 5, the only option with support. Its support: lesson 127, line 12: «The aye-aye's teeth keep growing like a rodent's, so scientists first thought it was a kind of squirrel.», reached through the same lesson line as the sentence the question matched. What matched: the same circumstance (+3); the same thing acted on «kind» (+1); the same light verb (be, have, do, get, go) (+1). The right option, 1, found no support in what it remembers. · the question and its options parsed, with trees and pragmatics
Test 4 · wrong ✗
In The Flintstones a sabre-toothed cat is a family pet who sleeps in a cave home with people. What is real?
- 1. Sabre-tooths only ate vegetables — no support
- 2. People kept sabre-tooths as pets in caves — no support
- 3. Sabre-tooths lived with dinosaurs and people in the same caves — ← Mova's choice · score 4
- 4. Sabre-tooths were wild hunters of big plant-eaters, never pets — ✓ the right answer · no support
Why: It took the question to ask which statement is true. It chose option 3 with score 4, the only option with support. Its support: lesson 89, line 12: «The olm lives in dark caves in Slovenia and nearby; it has no colour, and its eyes are hidden under skin, because in total darkness eyes were no use and faded…», reached through the option's own match among the sentences about the question's things. What matched: the same place «dark caves» (+3); the same action «live» (+2). Against it: a different doer (counts against) (-1). The right option, 4, found no support in what it remembers. · the question and its options parsed, with trees and pragmatics
Test 5 · wrong ✗
«Sid's a sloth so ground sloths were tiny and lived in trees, obvs» What is right?
- 1. No, they lived under the sea — no support
- 2. Yes, they hung upside down from branches like today's sloths — ← Mova's choice · score 4
- 3. Yes, they were tiny and lived in trees — no support
- 4. Some were as big as elephants and far too heavy to climb — ✓ the right answer · no support
Why: It took the question to ask which statement is true. It chose option 2 with score 4, the only option with support. Its support: lesson 108, line 5: «Sloths spend almost all their lives hanging upside down and move very slowly to save energy, because leaves give little of it, and they climb down only about o…», reached through the option's own match among the sentences about the question's things. What matched: the same property (+3); the same action «hang down» (+2). Against it: a different doer (counts against) (-1). The right option, 4, found no support in what it remembers. · the question and its options parsed, with trees and pragmatics
Test 6 · right ✓
«dodos lived in the ice age snow, saw it in the film» What is right?
- 1. Yes, they waddled next to mammoths — no support
- 2. Yes, they lived on the ice sheets next to mammoths and sloths — score 3
- 3. No, dodos lived only on warm Mauritius, far from the ice — ← Mova's choice · ✓ the right answer · score 4
- 4. No, dodos lived in Antarctica — score 3
Why: It took the question to ask which statement is true. It chose option 3 with score 4, against 3 for the next best. Its support: lesson 77, line 5: «The dodo was a big flightless pigeon from Mauritius, last reliably seen in 1662, less than 100 years after sailors arrived; with no enemies it was not afraid,…», reached through the option's own match among the sentences about the question's things. What matched: the same place «mauritius» (+3); the same doer «dodo» (+1). · the question and its options parsed, with trees and pragmatics
Test 7 · right ✓
What would happen to a tar pit full of stuck deer?
- 1. Nothing, no animal would come near — no support
- 2. The tar would turn into water — no support
- 3. The deer would swim out easily once the sun warmed the tar — no support
- 4. Hungry hunters would come and get stuck too — ← Mova's choice · ✓ the right answer · score 6
Why: It took the question to ask which statement is true. It chose option 4 with score 6, the only option with support. Its support: lesson 131, line 7: «Thousands of Smilodon skeletons were found in the La Brea Tar Pits in Los Angeles: plant-eaters got stuck in the tar and the hunters that came to eat them got…», reached through the same lesson line as the sentence the question matched. What matched: the same action «come» (+4); the same doer «hunters» (+2). · the question and its options parsed, with trees and pragmatics
Test 8 · right ✓
«why was the dodo so easy to catch, dumb bird or what» What is right?
- 1. It had no predators on its island, so it never learned to fear people — ← Mova's choice · ✓ the right answer · score 2
- 2. It was far too heavy to walk, so it just sat and waited to be picked up — no support
- 3. It wanted to be caught — no support
- 4. It was blind — no support
Why: It took the question to ask why something happens (its cause). It chose option 1 with score 2, the only option with support. Its support: lesson 131, line 3: «The film mixes things up for fun: a real sabre-tooth would have hunted a young mammoth, not walked beside it, and dodos lived on one warm island far from any i…», reached through the option's own match among the sentences about the question's things. What matched: the same place «one warm island» (+2). · the question and its options parsed, with trees and pragmatics
Test 9 · wrong ✗
If the ice sheets of the Ice Age melted back into the sea, what would happen to the land bridge between Asia and America?
- 1. It would get wider — ← Mova's choice · no support
- 2. It would go under the sea — ✓ the right answer · no support
- 3. Nothing would change — no support
- 4. It would turn into ice — no support
Why: No option found support in what it remembers, so it guessed: it took the first option shown. · the question and its options parsed, with trees and pragmatics
Test 10 · right ✓
«squirrels forget where they bury nuts lol useless» Why is that useful for the forest?
- 1. Nothing grows from a buried nut, it just rots away — score 7
- 2. Forgotten nuts grow into new trees — ← Mova's choice · ✓ the right answer · score 13
- 3. Forgotten nuts turn into stones — score 7
- 4. The nuts feed the worms only — no support
Why: It took the question to ask where. It chose option 2 with score 13, against 7 for the next best. Its support: lesson 131, line 12: «Real squirrels bury nuts and forget many of them, so the nuts grow into new trees.», reached through a sentence linked to the one the question matched. What matched: it fills the role the question asks for (+4); the same action «grow» (+3); the same doer «nuts» (+3); the same place «new trees» (+3). · the question and its options parsed, with trees and pragmatics
Test 11 · right ✓
«how did glyptodonts stay safe from sabre-tooths, they slow» What is right?
- 1. They climbed tall trees — no support
- 2. Their thick bony shell protected them — ← Mova's choice · ✓ the right answer · score 12
- 3. They hid under the ice — no support
- 4. They ran faster than any cat, even with their heavy shells — no support
Why: It took the question to ask what something is like. It chose option 2 with score 12, the only option with support. Its support: lesson 131, line 13: «Glyptodonts were armadillo relatives as big as a small car, covered in a bony shell that protected them from hunters such as Smilodon.», reached through the same lesson line as the sentence the question matched. What matched: the same action «protect» (+4); the same doer «bony shell» (+4); the same thing acted on «glyptodonts» (+4). · the question and its options parsed, with trees and pragmatics
Exam question 1 · formal language · right ✓
Select the response consistent with the established facts concerning the taxonomic position of Smilodon.
- 1. It constituted a separate and extinct branch of the cat family, distinct from the tiger — ← Mova's choice · ✓ the right answer · no support
- 2. It was an ancestral form of the modern tiger, from which all tigers have descended — no support
- 3. It was a large species of wolf — no support
- 4. It was a member of the bear family — no support
Why: No option found support in what it remembers, so it guessed: it took the first option shown. · the question and its options parsed, with trees and pragmatics
Exam question 2 · formal language · right ✓
Identify the principal reason for which great numbers of predatory animals were preserved in the La Brea Tar Pits.
- 1. Predators attracted to ensnared herbivores became ensnared themselves — ← Mova's choice · ✓ the right answer · no support
- 2. Predators deliberately entered the tar in order to rest — no support
- 3. Predators were driven into the tar by human hunters — no support
- 4. The tar was consumed by predators as food during hard winters when prey was scarce — no support
Why: No option found support in what it remembers, so it guessed: it took the first option shown. · the question and its options parsed, with trees and pragmatics
Exam question 3 · formal language · wrong ✗
Which of the following statements most accurately characterises the natural range of the dodo?
- 1. It occupied the ice sheets of the northern hemisphere — ← Mova's choice · no support
- 2. It was confined to the island of Mauritius in the Indian Ocean — ✓ the right answer · no support
- 3. It inhabited the forests of South America — no support
- 4. It was distributed throughout Europe and Asia — no support
Why: No option found support in what it remembers, so it guessed: it took the first option shown. · the question and its options parsed, with trees and pragmatics
Exam question 4 · formal language · right ✓
Ascertain the cause of the lowered sea level which prevailed during the Ice Age.
- 1. A great volume of water was retained in the form of ice sheets upon the land — ← Mova's choice · ✓ the right answer · no support
- 2. The gravitational attraction of the Moon was greatly diminished — no support
- 3. The oceans were consumed by evaporation into space — no support
- 4. The sea floor was elevated throughout the world — no support
Why: No option found support in what it remembers, so it guessed: it took the first option shown. · the question and its options parsed, with trees and pragmatics
This page in Markdown → https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/school-run/biology/131-ice-age-sabre-tooths-ground-sloths-and-scrat/