The first people: hunters, gatherers and cave painters
Tests: 7 of 11 right · Exam: 2 of 4 right · Kind: plain · Understood: 7 of 15 · Run: 2026-10-18, commit f3c23ea72
Lesson 1 of the history 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 · right ✓
my little bro says cavemen rode dinosaurs, he saw it on telly. right?
- 1. No, dinosaurs died out millions of years before humans — ← Mova's choice · ✓ the right answer · score 6
- 2. No, they rode woolly mammoths everywhere — score 6
- 3. Yes, in Africa they did — no support
- 4. Yes, but only small dinosaurs — no support
Why: It took the question to ask which statement is true. It chose option 1 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 1, line 5: «Cartoon cavemen who grunt and ride dinosaurs are pure fantasy: dinosaurs died out about 66 million years before the first humans.», reached through the same lesson line as the sentence the question matched. What matched: the same action «die out» (+2); the same doer «dinosaurs» (+2); the same circumstance (+2). · the question and its options parsed, with trees and pragmatics
Test 2 · wrong ✗
A cartoon shows cavemen as grunting and stupid. What is closer to the truth?
- 1. They really could not talk at all — ← Mova's choice · no support
- 2. They only knew how to hunt and nothing else — no support
- 3. They were cleverer than anyone alive today — no support
- 4. They were as clever as us and knew hundreds of plants — ✓ 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 · right ✓
Your mate says people appeared in every country at the same moment. Is he right?
- 1. Yes, but only after farming began — no support
- 2. No, they all came from Europe first — score 2
- 3. No, people spread out of Africa step by step — ← Mova's choice · ✓ the right answer · score 4
- 4. Yes, people appeared everywhere at once, in every land — score 4
Why: It took the question to ask which statement is true. It chose option 3 with score 4, tied with another option at 4 (the first shown, or the one claiming less beyond what it knows, wins). Its support: lesson 1, line 7: «From Africa people spread step by step over the whole world over many tens of thousands of years; they did not appear everywhere at once.», reached through a sentence linked to the one the question matched. What matched: the same action «spread» (+2); the same circumstance (+2). · the question and its options parsed, with trees and pragmatics
Test 4 · right ✓
If a hunter-gatherer band had no fire in the Ice Age, what would be hardest?
- 1. Keeping warm through the freezing nights — ← Mova's choice · ✓ the right answer · score 6
- 2. Writing down their stories in books — score 4
- 3. Finding enough sand to play in by the river — no support
- 4. Keeping their pots clean — no support
Why: It took the question to ask what it is done to. It chose option 1 with score 6, against 4 for the next best. Its support: lesson 1, line 3: «Picture a camping trip with no tent from a shop, no matches and no supermarket: you must know which berries are safe, where the deer drink and how to keep a fi…», reached through the remembered sentence the question matched. What matched: the same action «keep» (+4); the same property (+2). · the question and its options parsed, with trees and pragmatics
Test 5 · wrong ✗
Why are hands painted on cave walls in Indonesia and Argentina so interesting?
- 1. They prove both places were one country — ← Mova's choice · no support
- 2. They were painted by the same person — no support
- 3. People far apart had the same idea — ✓ the right answer · no support
- 4. They show people wrote letters to each other — 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 · wrong ✗
You must move camp every few weeks. What would you own?
- 1. A heavy stone oven — ← Mova's choice · no support
- 2. Only what you could carry — ✓ the right answer · no support
- 3. A herd of cows kept in a barn — no support
- 4. A big library of books — 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 7 · wrong ✗
Ötzi's shoes were stuffed with grass. What does that tell us?
- 1. Ötzi had no feet — ← Mova's choice · no support
- 2. People were clever about staying warm — ✓ the right answer · no support
- 3. Shoes were not yet invented in his time — no support
- 4. Grass was used as money in his day — 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 · right ✓
Why do we know a lot about Ötzi but little about most people of his time?
- 1. Someone painted his whole life in a cave — score 2
- 2. He wrote a long diary — no support
- 3. The ice kept his body and his things — ← Mova's choice · ✓ the right answer · score 6
- 4. He was a famous king — no support
Why: It took the question to ask why something happens (its cause). It chose option 3 with score 6, against 2 for the next best. Its support: lesson 1, line 17: «Ötzi the Iceman lived about 5,300 years ago; his body was kept by the ice of the Alps and found by hikers in 1991, with his copper axe, bow and grass-stuffed s…», reached through a sentence linked to the one the question matched. What matched: the same action «keep» (+2); the same doer «ice» (+2); the same thing acted on «body» (+2). · the question and its options parsed, with trees and pragmatics
Test 9 · right ✓
Bloody hell, how old are them cave paintings at Lascaux and Altamira?
- 1. Made last century as a joke by some local kids — no support
- 2. About 3 million years old, before people — no support
- 3. About 300 years old — no support
- 4. Some paintings in such caves are over 30,000 years old — ← Mova's choice · ✓ the right answer · score 7
Why: It took the question to ask what something is like. It chose option 4 with score 7, the only option with support. Its support: lesson 1, line 14: «In caves such as Lascaux in France and Altamira in Spain people painted horses, bulls and deer with colours made from earth and charcoal, and some cave paintin…», reached through the option's own match among the sentences about the question's things. What matched: it fills the role the question asks for (+3); the same doer «cave paintings» (+2); the same property (+1); the same light verb (be, have, do, get, go) (+1). · the question and its options parsed, with trees and pragmatics
Test 10 · right ✓
Which is true about when people started talking?
- 1. Language began exactly 5,000 years ago, in Egypt — score 4
- 2. People only grunted until farming began — no support
- 3. Talking was invented by the Romans — no support
- 4. Nobody knows exactly when language began — ← Mova's choice · ✓ the right answer · score 5
Why: It took the question to ask which statement is true. It chose option 4 with score 5, against 4 for the next best. Its support: lesson 1, line 16: «Nobody knows exactly when language began, but early humans talked, sang and told stories.», reached through the same lesson line as the sentence the question matched. What matched: the same action «begin» (+2); the same doer «language» (+2); the same property (+1). · the question and its options parsed, with trees and pragmatics
Test 11 · right ✓
Why would a band of hunter-gatherers share their food?
- 1. Keeping food for yourself was against the law — no support
- 2. Sharing was forced by a king — no support
- 3. They looked after each other to survive — ← Mova's choice · ✓ the right answer · score 4
- 4. They had too much to ever eat — no support
Why: It took the question to ask why something happens (its cause). It chose option 3 with score 4, the only option with support. Its support: lesson 1, line 9: «Hunter-gatherers lived in small bands of a few families who shared food and looked after each other.», reached through the same lesson line as the sentence the question matched. What matched: the same action «live» (+2); the same doer «hunter gatherers» (+2). · the question and its options parsed, with trees and pragmatics
Exam question 1 · formal language · wrong ✗
Identify the continent which is established as the original home of anatomically modern humans.
- 1. South America — ← Mova's choice · no support
- 2. Europe — no support
- 3. Antarctica — no support
- 4. Africa — ✓ the right answer · no support
Why: Nothing it remembers matched the question, 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 ✓
Which of the following statements most accurately characterises the mode of subsistence of humankind for the greater part of its history?
- 1. Hunting, fishing and the gathering of wild plants — ← Mova's choice · ✓ the right answer · no support
- 2. The rearing of cattle in enclosed barns — no support
- 3. The purchase of provisions in urban markets — no support
- 4. The cultivation of cereals in permanent fields — no support
Why: Nothing it remembers matched the question, 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 ✗
It is asserted in certain animated productions that early humans coexisted with dinosaurs. Select the response consistent with the established facts.
- 1. The assertion is accurate in respect of Africa alone — ← Mova's choice · no support
- 2. The assertion is false, the dinosaurs having perished some 66 million years earlier — ✓ the right answer · no support
- 3. The assertion is accurate in respect of the Ice Age — no support
- 4. The assertion is accurate in respect of the smaller 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 4 · formal language · right ✓
Ascertain the approximate antiquity of the body designated Ötzi, recovered from the Alpine ice in 1991.
- 1. Approximately 5,300 years — ← Mova's choice · ✓ the right answer · no support
- 2. Approximately 530 years — no support
- 3. Approximately 5.3 million years — no support
- 4. Approximately 53,000 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
This page in Markdown → https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/school-run/history/1-the-first-people/