Gaols, magistrates and old punishments: from the stocks to the Children Act of 1908
Tests: 4 of 11 right · Exam: 1 of 4 right · Kind: ★★ · Understood: 7 of 15 · Run: 2026-10-18, commit f3c23ea72
Lesson 84 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 · ★★ · wrong ✗
«toad got 20 years from the magistrates, that's legit how it worked back then right» What is true?
- 1. Yes, but only to toads and other animals — no support
- 2. Yes, magistrates gave twenty years for almost any crime at all — ← Mova's choice · score 8
- 3. No, magistrates could only give the death sentence — score 6
- 4. No, magistrates could only give short sentences of months — ✓ the right answer · score 6
Why: It took the question to ask what something is like. It chose option 2 with score 8, against 6 for the next best. Its support: lesson 84, line 7: «Magistrates are ordinary local people, not trained lawyers, who judge smaller cases in England and Wales; they still do this today, and they can only give shor…», 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 action «give» (+2); the same doer «magistrates» (+2); the same property (+1). The right option, 4, scored 6. · the question and its options parsed, with trees and pragmatics
Test 2 · ★★ · right ✓
The crowd pelts Toad «with jeers, carrots, and popular catch-words». Which old punishment is that like?
- 1. The stocks, where people jeered and threw rotten food — ← Mova's choice · ✓ the right answer · no support
- 2. The treadwheel — no support
- 3. Transportation, where prisoners were sent to Australia on ships — no support
- 4. A fine — 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 ✗
«toad's in a castle dungeon, so prisons in 1908 were castles» What is the best answer?
- 1. Yes, every prison in 1908 was a castle with a drawbridge and knights — ← Mova's choice · score 4
- 2. Prisons in 1908 were just tents in fields — no support
- 3. Most were new prisons with rows of cells, though a few castles were still used — ✓ the right answer · no support
- 4. No, prisons in 1908 were all built deep underground — no support
Why: It took the question to ask which statement is true. It chose option 1 with score 4, the only option with support. Its support: lesson 21, line 8: «The first castles were wooden towers on earth mounds; later castles were built of stone, with thick walls, towers, moats and drawbridges.», reached through the option's own match among the sentences about the question's things. What matched: the same thing acted on «castles» (+2); the same circumstance (+2). The right option, 3, found no support in what it remembers. · the question and its options parsed, with trees and pragmatics
Test 4 · ★★ · wrong ✗
Toad's sentence: one year for stealing the car, three for driving dangerously, fifteen for cheeking the police. What is wrong with that?
- 1. The theft of the car should have got nothing at all — ← Mova's choice · no support
- 2. The smallest wrong, rudeness, gets by far the biggest punishment — ✓ the right answer · no support
- 3. Nothing, that is exactly how it should be done — no support
- 4. Driving fast was not a crime at all in those days — 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 ✗
A girl of 12 in 1850 steals a loaf. What might have happened to her?
- 1. She would have been given a medal for being hungry — ← Mova's choice · no support
- 2. She would have been made a magistrate — no support
- 3. She would have been sent to a special youth court, as today — no support
- 4. She could have been sent to prison, or even transported — ✓ 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 6 · ★★ · wrong ✗
The same girl steals a loaf in 1910. What is different?
- 1. She would now be transported to Australia on a convict ship — ← Mova's choice · no support
- 2. The Children Act of 1908 meant she could not be sent to prison — ✓ the right answer · no support
- 3. Nothing at all had changed for children since 1850 — no support
- 4. She would now be locked in the stocks for a whole week — 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 · ★★ · right ✓
«treadmill at the gym, that's from prison?? no way» Is it true?
- 1. No, the treadmill was invented for gyms in the 1990s — no support
- 2. No, a treadmill is a mill that grinds the treads for tyres — no support
- 3. Yes, Victorian prisoners walked on treadwheels as hard labour — ← Mova's choice · ✓ the right answer · score 6
- 4. Yes, but only in Australia — no support
Why: It took the question to ask which statement is true. It chose option 3 with score 6, the only option with support. Its support: lesson 84, line 11: «In many Victorian prisons prisoners did hard labour, such as walking for hours on a treadwheel, a huge turning wheel of steps, which is where the word «treadmi…», reached through the remembered sentence the question matched. What matched: the same circumstance (+4); the same doer «prisoners» (+2). · the question and its options parsed, with trees and pragmatics
Test 8 · ★★ · right ✓
The washerwoman asks to be «gagged and bound» so it looks as if Toad attacked her. Why?
- 1. She took his gold coins, which was bribery, and wanted to hide it — ← Mova's choice · ✓ the right answer · score 5
- 2. She wanted to have a long rest from washing — no support
- 3. It was the law that every washerwoman be tied up on Fridays — no support
- 4. She liked being tied up in a corner of the cell — no support
Why: It took the question to ask why something happens (its cause). It chose option 1 with score 5, the only option with support. Its support: lesson 84, line 16: «Paying a guard or helper to let a prisoner escape is bribery and is a crime; in the book the washerwoman takes gold coins and asks to be tied up so it looks as…», reached through the option's own match among the sentences about the question's things. What matched: the same action «take» (+2); a different doer (counts against) (+2); the same thing acted on «gold coins» (+1). · the question and its options parsed, with trees and pragmatics
Test 9 · ★★ · right ✓
«my mate says the gaoler's daughter is made up, gaolers didnt have families» What is right?
- 1. Old gaolers often lived in the gaol with their families — ← Mova's choice · ✓ the right answer · score 9
- 2. Gaolers were never allowed to marry or have children — no support
- 3. Gaolers were always soldiers who lived in barracks — no support
- 4. Only castles had gaolers, and they lived in towers — no support
Why: It took the question to ask which statement is true. It chose option 1 with score 9, the only option with support. Its support: lesson 84, line 6: ««Gaol» is an old spelling of «jail» and is said exactly the same way; a gaoler is a jailer, the person who keeps the prisoners, and old gaolers often lived in…», reached through the option's own match among the sentences about the question's things. What matched: the same action «live» (+2); the same doer «old gaolers» (+2); the same place «gaol» (+2); the same circumstance (+2). · the question and its options parsed, with trees and pragmatics
Test 10 · ★★ · wrong ✗
Why might Elizabeth Fry have taught prisoners to sew and read?
- 1. So they could escape by sewing rope ladders from sheets — ← Mova's choice · no support
- 2. So they could write letters to the King asking to be freed — no support
- 3. So they could earn an honest living and change their lives — ✓ the right answer · no support
- 4. So they could make all the prison uniforms for free — 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 11 · ★★ · wrong ✗
★★★ Toad gets 1 year, then 3 years, then 15 years, and the Chairman rounds the total up to twenty. If Toad had already served 9 months when he escaped, how many months of the twenty years were left?
- 1. 219 — ← Mova's choice · no support
- 2. 211 — no support
- 3. 240 — no support
- 4. 231 — ✓ 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
Exam question 1 · formal language · wrong ✗
Identify the persons who, in England and Wales, adjudicate upon the lesser criminal cases.
- 1. The clergy of the parish church — ← Mova's choice · no support
- 2. Judges of the highest court, sitting together with a jury of twelve citizens — no support
- 3. Officers of the police, acting upon their own authority — no support
- 4. Magistrates, being ordinary local persons rather than trained lawyers — ✓ 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
Exam question 2 · formal language · wrong ✗
Select the response consistent with the established facts concerning the punishment of transportation.
- 1. Convicts were carried about the town in a cart — ← Mova's choice · no support
- 2. Prisoners were conveyed by railway to the far north of Scotland and set to work in the mines there — no support
- 3. Prisoners were transported to the Moon — no support
- 4. Some 160,000 convicts were conveyed by ship to Australia between 1788 and 1868 — ✓ 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
Exam question 3 · formal language · right ✓
Ascertain the principal provision of the Children Act of 1908 concerning imprisonment.
- 1. All children were to be transported abroad — no support
- 2. Children were to serve as gaolers — no support
- 3. Children under fourteen were no longer to be sent to prison — ← Mova's choice · ✓ the right answer · score 4
- 4. Children were henceforth to be imprisoned alongside adults in every gaol of the kingdom — 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 34, line 3: «In 1939 Germany invaded Poland and a war began that spread across the whole world; British children were sent to the countryside with a gas mask and a name lab…», reached through the option's own match among the sentences about the question's things. What matched: the same action «send» (+2); the same thing acted on «british children» (+2). · the question and its options parsed, with trees and pragmatics
Exam question 4 · formal language · wrong ✗
Which of the following statements most accurately characterises the principle that a punishment should fit the crime?
- 1. Lesser offences ought to receive lesser punishments and graver offences graver ones — ✓ the right answer · no support
- 2. All offences, however slight or however grave, ought to receive identical punishments — no support
- 3. The punishment ought to be chosen at random by the court — no support
- 4. The punishment ought to depend upon the wealth of the offender — ← Mova's choice · score 8
Why: It took the question to ask who or what does it. It chose option 4 with score 8, the only option with support. Its support: lesson 4, line 9: «Some of Hammurabi's laws said the punishment should match the harm, an eye for an eye, but the laws were harsher on poor people and slaves than on the rich.», reached through the remembered sentence the question matched. What matched: it fills the role the question asks for (+6); the same doer «punishment» (+4). Against it: a different action (counts against) (-2). The right option, 1, found no support in what it remembers. · the question and its options parsed, with trees and pragmatics
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