Plants deeper: the oldest, tallest and strangest trees

Tests: 6 of 11 right · Exam: 2 of 4 right · Kind: plain · Understood: 10 of 15 · Run: 2026-10-18, commit f3c23ea72

Lesson 253 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 ✗

In a film a talking willow tree says she is four hundred years old. Can trees really be that old?

1. Yes, and some, like bristlecone pines, are nearly 5,000 years old — ✓ the right answer · no support
2. No, no tree anywhere on Earth lives for more than about 100 years at most — score 3
3. Yes, but only willows — no support
4. No, trees die after 40 years — ← Mova's choice · score 6

Why: It took the question to ask which statement is true. It chose option 4 with score 6, against 3 for the next best. Its support: lesson 178, line 1: «Most trees die if you pour salty sea water on their roots, but mangroves grow with their feet in it, along warm tropical coasts where the tide comes in and out…», reached through the option's own match among the sentences about the question's things. What matched: the same action «die» (+4); the same doer «most trees» (+2). The right option, 1, found no support in what it remembers. · the question and its options parsed, with trees and pragmatics

Test 2 · wrong ✗

«why don't trees just keep growing taller forever» What is the best answer?

1. They hit the clouds — ← Mova's choice · no support
2. The wind cuts off the tops each year and they have to start again from the bottom — no support
3. Water cannot be pulled up high enough fast enough above about 120 to 130 metres — ✓ the right answer · no support
4. Birds land on the tops and break them — 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 · right ✓

«my bonsai is a baby tree, special mini sort innit» What is right?

1. It is an ordinary tree kept small by cutting, it could grow big in the ground — ← Mova's choice · ✓ the right answer · score 7
2. Yes, they come from a tiny forest — no support
3. Yes, bonsai are a special tiny kind of tree that grows in the wild in Japan — score 4
4. No, bonsai are plastic — no support

Why: It took the question to ask which statement is true. It chose option 1 with score 7, against 4 for the next best. Its support: lesson 253, line 15: «Bonsai are ordinary trees kept small by careful cutting of roots and branches in small pots, not special tiny kinds, and some bonsai are hundreds of years old.», reached through the option's own match among the sentences about the question's things. What matched: the same action «keep» (+4); the same property (+2); the same thing acted on «ordinary trees» (+1). · the question and its options parsed, with trees and pragmatics

Test 4 · right ✓

«counted 23 rings on the log, no wait 32. how old was the tree»

1. About 32 years — ← Mova's choice · ✓ the right answer · no support
2. About 23 years — no support
3. About 55 years — no support
4. About 9 years — 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 5 · wrong ✗

«10 wide rings and 5 thin ones on my log. how many good wet years»

1. 50 — ← Mova's choice · no support
2. 15 — no support
3. 10 — ✓ the right answer · no support
4. 5 — 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 6 · right ✓

What would happen if a scientist found a beam with rings in an old house and matched the pattern to dated trees?

1. She could tell roughly when the tree was cut — ← Mova's choice · ✓ the right answer · score 3
2. She could tell nothing at all — score 3
3. She could tell what colour the house was — score 3
4. She could tell exactly who had built the house and when — score 3

Why: It took the question to ask what happens next. It chose option 1 with score 3, tied with another option at 3 (the first shown, or the one claiming less beyond what it knows, wins). Its support: lesson 232, line 5: «Scientists find these senses by careful tests, for example by switching on a weak radio noise and watching robins lose their way.», reached through what followed the sentence the question matched. What matched: the same doer «scientists» (+3). · the question and its options parsed, with trees and pragmatics

Test 7 · right ✓

«that massive fat tree in Africa, there's a pub inside it?? no way» What is right?

1. Some hollow baobabs really have been used as a shop, a prison and a pub — ← Mova's choice · ✓ the right answer · no support
2. It is a joke, because baobabs are thin — no support
3. Pubs are only built in oak trees — no support
4. Baobabs are full of water, so nobody could ever get inside one to drink — 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 8 · wrong ✗

«saw a big tree in Kolkata, like 1000s of trunks, must be loads of trees» What is it?

1. A forest of different trees growing very close together — score 7
2. The Great Banyan, one tree with roots that became trunks — ✓ the right answer · score 5
3. A fake tree for tourists — ← Mova's choice · score 8
4. A bamboo field — no support

Why: It took the question to ask what it is done to. It chose option 3 with score 8, against 7 for the next best. Its support: lesson 51, line 15: «In smoky 1800s England, soot blackened tree trunks, so dark peppered moths hid better, birds ate the pale ones they could see, and dark moths became common; wh…», reached through the remembered sentence the question matched. What matched: it fills the role the question asks for (+4); the same thing acted on «pale ones» (+2); the same circumstance (+2). The right option, 2, scored 5. · the question and its options parsed, with trees and pragmatics

Test 9 · right ✓

A wildfire passes through a giant sequoia grove. What can happen next?

1. The trees survive and the heat helps their cones open — ← Mova's choice · ✓ the right answer · no support
2. All the sequoias die at once in the flames and the smoke — no support
3. The sequoias stop making seeds for many years — no support
4. The trees grow tunnels — 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 · wrong ✗

«yew berry looks nice, ok to eat the whole thing?» What is right?

1. Only if you cook it — ← Mova's choice · score 5
2. Yes, but only the seed — no support
3. No, the seed inside is very poisonous, leave yew berries alone — ✓ the right answer · no support
4. Yes, all of a yew is safe — no support

Why: It took the question to ask which statement is true. It chose option 1 with score 5, the only option with support. Its support: lesson 194, line 12: «If a strange dog runs at you, the safest thing is to stand still like a tree, arms in, looking away, and not run or scream, because running can make it chase.», reached through the option's own match among the sentences about the question's things. What matched: the same action «make» (+4); the same thing acted on «thing» (+1). The right option, 3, found no support in what it remembers. · the question and its options parsed, with trees and pragmatics

Test 11 · right ✓

Why do gardeners buying Wollemi pines help the wild ones?

1. Fewer people go looking for the secret wild trees — ← Mova's choice · ✓ the right answer · score 2
2. The garden trees send their seeds back to the wild ones — no support
3. The wild trees need gardeners to come and water them every summer — score 2
4. It somehow makes the wild trees in the gorge grow faster — no support

Why: It took the question to ask why something happens (its cause). It chose option 1 with score 2, tied with another option at 2 (the first shown, or the one claiming less beyond what it knows, wins). Its support: lesson 78, line 14: «The Arabian oryx was hunted to extinction in the wild by 1972, but zoo-bred animals were released in Oman from 1982, and it moved from endangered to vulnerable…», reached through the option's own match among the sentences about the question's things. What matched: the same action «look» (+2); the same circumstance (+1). Against it: a different doer (counts against) (-1). · the question and its options parsed, with trees and pragmatics

Exam question 1 · formal language · wrong ✗

Which of the following statements most accurately characterises the means by which water ascends a tall tree?

1. A muscular organ within the trunk propels the water upwards — score 0
2. The roots exert a pressure sufficient by itself to raise water to any height whatsoever, however tall the tree — ← Mova's choice · score 4
3. The evaporation of water from the leaves draws a continuous column of water upwards through narrow tubes — ✓ the right answer · score 2
4. The water is conveyed upwards by the action of the wind — score -2

Why: It took the question to ask who or what does it. It chose option 2 with score 4, against 2 for the next best. Its support: lesson 250, line 6: «Roots hold a plant in the ground and take in water and minerals; they grow down with gravity, towards water and away from light, and the roots of one rye plant…», reached through the option's own match among the sentences about the question's things. What matched: the same thing acted on «water» (+2); it fills the role the question asks for (+2); the same doer «roots» (+1). Against it: a different action (counts against) (-1). The right option, 3, scored 2. · the question and its options parsed, with trees and pragmatics

Exam question 2 · formal language · right ✓

Identify the principal method by which the age of a felled tree may be determined.

1. The enumeration of the annual rings within its trunk — ← Mova's choice · ✓ the right answer · score 5
2. The examination of the colour of its bark — no support
3. The measurement of its total weight with great precision — no support
4. The enumeration of its branches — no support

Why: It took the question to ask which statement is true. It chose option 1 with score 5, the only option with support. Its support: lesson 87, line 14: «A rattlesnake's rattle is made of hollow rings of hard skin; a ring is added at each shed, several times a year, and old rings break off, so you cannot tell it…», reached through the option's own match among the sentences about the question's things. What matched: the same action «count» (+4); the same thing acted on «rings» (+1). · the question and its options parsed, with trees and pragmatics

Exam question 3 · formal language · right ✓

Select the response consistent with the established facts concerning the dawn redwood.

1. It was known solely from fossils until living specimens were discovered in China in the 1940s — ← Mova's choice · ✓ the right answer · score 9
2. It is the tallest tree presently living — score 4
3. It was first planted by gardeners in the 1990s — no support
4. It has never been discovered in a living state, being known to science only from fossils in rocks — score 8

Why: It took the question to ask which statement is true. It chose option 1 with score 9, against 8 for the next best. Its support: lesson 253, line 16: «The dawn redwood was known only from fossils until living trees were found in China in the 1940s; seeds were sent round the world and it now grows in many park…», reached through the option's own match among the sentences about the question's things. What matched: the same action «know» (+4); the same place «fossils» (+4); the same thing acted on «dawn redwood» (+1). · the question and its options parsed, with trees and pragmatics

Exam question 4 · formal language · wrong ✗

Ascertain the reason for which the precise location of the tree known as Hyperion is withheld from the public.

1. The tree having been felled many years ago — ← Mova's choice · score 6
2. The protection of the tree from damage by numerous visitors — ✓ the right answer · score 3
3. The tree being situated upon private property abroad, in a distant country — no support
4. The location being unknown to scientists — no support

Why: It took the question to ask which statement is true. It chose option 1 with score 6, against 3 for the next best. Its support: lesson 157, line 1: «Under the canopy the forest floor is dim, hot and damp, and so busy that a fallen tree can vanish in a few years as fungi, termites and bacteria eat it.», reached through the option's own match among the sentences about the question's things. What matched: the same action «vanish» (+4); the same property (+2). The right option, 2, scored 3. · the question and its options parsed, with trees and pragmatics

This page in Markdown → https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/school-run/biology/253-plants-deeper-the-oldest-tallest-and-strangest-trees/