Terror birds, moas, giant insects and other lost giants

Tests: 3 of 11 right · Exam: 2 of 4 right · Kind: ★★★ · Understood: 9 of 15 · Run: 2026-10-18, commit f3c23ea72

Lesson 274 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 ✗

«Bigfoot's real, it's that giant ape from China» What is the honest answer?

1. No, giant apes never existed — ← Mova's choice · no support
2. Yes, Gigantopithecus never died out and still lives in the forests of America today — no support
3. Gigantopithecus was real but died out long ago, and there is no evidence for Bigfoot — ✓ the right answer · no support
4. Yes, Bigfoot was filmed clearly — 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 ✗

Count them: a museum has 2 terror bird and 3 moa skeletons, and moas had no wings at all. How many legs and wings?

1. 20 legs and 4 wings — ← Mova's choice · no support
2. 5 legs and 4 wings — no support
3. 10 legs and 4 wings — ✓ the right answer · no support
4. 10 legs and 10 wings — 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 ✗

What would happen to a big-bodied elephant stuck on a small island with little food and no hunters?

1. It would turn into a Komodo dragon — score 2
2. It would grow wings and fly home — no support
3. Its kind would get bigger and bigger — ← Mova's choice · score 6
4. Over many generations its kind would tend to get smaller — ✓ the right answer · score 6

Why: It took the question to ask which statement is true. It chose option 3 with score 6, tied with another option at 6 (the first shown, or the one claiming less beyond what it knows, wins). Its support: lesson 161, line 15: «Bornean elephants are smaller than other Asian elephants, with bigger ears and long tails; some scientists think people brought them long ago, others think the…», reached through the option's own match among the sentences about the question's things. What matched: the same doer «bornean elephants» (+3); the same property (+3). The right option, 4, scored 6. · the question and its options parsed, with trees and pragmatics

Test 4 · ★★★ · wrong ✗

«giant dragonflies, so the bugs today could get massive too if we wait?» What is the best answer?

1. Yes, every bug in your garden will soon be the size of a crow or bigger — ← Mova's choice · no support
2. No, giant dragonflies were only ever in a cartoon — no support
3. Not in today's air: big insects need more oxygen than there is now — ✓ the right answer · no support
4. Yes, if you feed them more sugar — 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 ✗

In a cartoon a giant snake lives in an icy mountain cave. Why is that unlike Titanoboa?

1. Titanoboa was warm-blooded like a bear — no support
2. Snakes cannot live in caves — ← Mova's choice · score 6
3. Titanoboa needed a hot swamp, since cold-blooded animals grow bigger where it is warm — ✓ the right answer · score 5
4. Titanoboa lived far out in the open sea and never once came near any land at all — no support

Why: It took the question to ask why something happens (its cause). It chose option 2 with score 6, against 5 for the next best. Its support: lesson 179, line 13: «Cave animals are cut off from each other, so many caves have kinds found nowhere else, and tiny animals live two kilometres down in Krubera Cave in Georgia.», reached through the option's own match among the sentences about the question's things. What matched: the same action «live» (+4); the same place «krubera cave» (+3). Against it: one says «not», the other does not (counts against) (-1). The right option, 3, scored 5. · the question and its options parsed, with trees and pragmatics

Test 6 · ★★★ · right ✓

«why'd the moas go so fast, they were huge» What is the most likely reason?

1. A huge volcano erupted and buried the whole of New Zealand under ash and lava — no support
2. The Haast's eagle ate every one — no support
3. People arrived and hunted them, and the moas had never met a land hunter like that — ← Mova's choice · ✓ the right answer · score 7
4. They flew away to Australia — no support

Why: It took the question to ask why something happens (its cause). It chose option 3 with score 7, the only option with support. Its support: lesson 274, line 8: «People arrived in New Zealand around 1300 and hunted the moas, which had never met a hunter on land before; the moas died out within about 200 years, and the H…», reached through the same lesson line as the sentence the question matched. What matched: the same action «meet» (+4); the same doer «moas» (+2); the same thing acted on «hunter» (+1). · the question and its options parsed, with trees and pragmatics

Test 7 · ★★★ · wrong ✗

When the moas disappeared, why did the Haast's eagle die out too?

1. It caught a cold — no support
2. It lost the big animal it hunted — ✓ the right answer · score 5
3. People tamed it — no support
4. It turned into a kiwi — ← Mova's choice · score 6

Why: It took the question to ask which statement is true. It chose option 4 with score 6, against 5 for the next best. Its support: lesson 80, line 6: «The bald eagle is not bald; its name comes from an old word meaning white, for its white head, and it became the national bird of the USA in 1782.», reached through the option's own match among the sentences about the question's things. What matched: the same action «become» (+3); the same doer «eagle» (+3). The right option, 2, scored 5. · the question and its options parsed, with trees and pragmatics

Test 8 · ★★★ · wrong ✗

Count them: one elephant bird egg is like 150 hen's eggs. How many hen's eggs are 2 elephant bird eggs like?

1. 152 — ← Mova's choice · no support
2. 300 — ✓ the right answer · no support
3. 75 — no support
4. 150 — 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 9 · ★★★ · right ✓

Why does every lump of coal remind us of Arthropleura?

1. Coal is made of squashed millipedes like Arthropleura — no support
2. Arthropleura ate coal — no support
3. Coal comes from the ancient forests where it lived — ← Mova's choice · ✓ the right answer · score 9
4. Coal is its fossil dung — no support

Why: It took the question to ask why something happens (its cause). It chose option 3 with score 9, the only option with support. Its support: lesson 274, line 11: «Arthropleura was a millipede relative as long as a car that lived in the coal forests and probably ate plants; the coal we burn comes from those forests.», reached through the same lesson line as the sentence the question matched. What matched: the same action «come» (+4); the same place «forests» (+3); the same doer «coal» (+2). · the question and its options parsed, with trees and pragmatics

Test 10 · ★★★ · wrong ✗

«there's no giants left to find, scientists found everything» What is true?

1. Scientists stopped looking in 1900 — ← Mova's choice · score 6
2. Almost all big animals are known, but most living species are still unnamed — ✓ the right answer · no support
3. No, new giants are found every week — no support
4. Yes, every species is named — no support

Why: It took the question to ask which statement is true. It chose option 1 with score 6, the only option with support. Its support: lesson 169, line 14: «Even in the dark polar night some tiny sea animals move up and down in the water, which surprised scientists who thought life there almost stopped in winter.», reached through the option's own match among the sentences about the question's things. What matched: the same action «stop» (+3); the same doer «scientists» (+3). The right option, 2, found no support in what it remembers. · the question and its options parsed, with trees and pragmatics

Test 11 · ★★★ · right ✓

A giraffe and Paraceratherium both ate from treetops. Which statement is true?

1. Paraceratherium was a hornless rhino as heavy as several elephants — ← Mova's choice · ✓ the right answer · score 2
2. Paraceratherium was smaller than a goat — score 2
3. Paraceratherium was a dinosaur — score 2
4. Paraceratherium was a kind of giraffe — score 2

Why: It took the question to ask who or what does it. 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 274, line 15: «Paraceratherium, a hornless rhino of Asia, was about 5 metres tall at the shoulder, ate leaves from treetops and was the biggest land mammal ever.», reached through the same lesson line as the sentence the question matched. What matched: the same light verb (be, have, do, get, go) (+1); it fills the role the question asks for (+1). · the question and its options parsed, with trees and pragmatics

Exam question 1 · formal language · right ✓

Identify the factor understood to have permitted the attainment of great size by certain insects some three hundred million years ago.

1. A higher concentration of oxygen within the atmosphere — ← Mova's choice · ✓ the right answer · no support
2. The coldness of the climate — no support
3. The complete absence of sunlight during the Carboniferous — no support
4. A diet consisting of dinosaurs — 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 · wrong ✗

Select the response consistent with the established facts concerning the extinction of the moa.

1. It occurred sixty-six million years ago, at the same time as that of the non-bird dinosaurs, owing to the asteroid — no support
2. It was caused solely by the Haast's eagle — ← Mova's choice · score 3
3. The moa survives at the present day — no support
4. It occurred within approximately two centuries of human settlement, together with that of the Haast's eagle — ✓ the right answer · no support

Why: It took the question to ask which statement is true. It chose option 2 with score 3, the only option with support. Its support: lesson 77, line 3: «Most extinctions today are caused by people, by cutting down homes, hunting, bringing in rats and diseases, and dropping plastic; the good news is that the sam…», reached through the option's own match among the sentences about the question's things. What matched: the same action «cause» (+3); the same thing acted on «most extinctions» (+2). Against it: a different doer (counts against) (-2). The right option, 4, found no support in what it remembers. · the question and its options parsed, with trees and pragmatics

Exam question 3 · formal language · wrong ✗

Ascertain the tendency observed among elephants isolated upon islands such as Sicily and Crete.

1. The loss of the trunk — ← Mova's choice · no support
2. An increase in body size to twice the mainland form — no support
3. A reduction in body size to that of a pony — ✓ the right answer · no support
4. The acquisition of the capacity for flight — 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 ✓

Which of the following statements most accurately characterises the evidence for the existence of the creature popularly termed Bigfoot?

1. It is known from a complete preserved body — no support
2. There is no evidence of its existence, although the extinct Gigantopithecus is known from teeth and jaws — ← Mova's choice · ✓ the right answer · score 9
3. Its existence has been conclusively demonstrated by photographs, footprints and hair examined in laboratories — score 0
4. It is identical to the living gorilla of China — score 3

Why: It took the question to ask who or what does it. It chose option 2 with score 9, against 3 for the next best. Its support: lesson 274, line 13: «Gigantopithecus was a giant ape, maybe 3 metres tall, that lived in China until about 300,000 years ago; we know it only from teeth and jaws, and there is no e…», reached through a sentence linked to the one the question matched. What matched: the same action «know» (+6); the same place «teeth» (+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/274-terror-birds-moas-giant-insects-and-lost-giants/