Olympiad: spot the anachronism ★★★
Tests: 5 of 12 right · Exam: 1 of 4 right · Kind: ★★★ · Understood: 3 of 16 · Run: 2026-10-18, commit f3c23ea72
Lesson 87 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 ✓
★★★ Lily plays a game: «A Plains warrior on horseback in the year 1300, epic!» What's wrong?
- 1. Horses came back to the Americas with the Spanish, after 1492 — ← Mova's choice · ✓ the right answer · no support
- 2. Nothing; horses first came from America to Spain — no support
- 3. Nothing; Plains peoples rode horses for a million years — no support
- 4. Only that the horse should really be a camel — 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 ✗
★★★ Noah in Atlanta: «Lincoln in a photo? Fake, y'all, cameras weren't even invented yet.» Fair?
- 1. Yes; the first camera came in 1950 — ← Mova's choice · no support
- 2. Yes; every Lincoln photo is a painting — no support
- 3. No; photos began decades before Lincoln was president — ✓ the right answer · no support
- 4. No; Lincoln himself invented the camera — 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 ✓
★★★ A cartoon shows Cleopatra snacking on chocolate. «It's giving ancient queen», says Ava. What's the real spot?
- 1. Only the shiny wrapper is wrong — no support
- 2. Nothing; cocoa grew all over Egypt — no support
- 3. Chocolate had been banned in Egypt — no support
- 4. Chocolate came from the Americas — ← Mova's choice · ✓ the right answer · score 5
Why: It took the question to ask what it is done to. It chose option 4 with score 5, the only option with support. Its support: lesson 87, line 4: «Food is a great clue: potatoes, tomatoes, maize and chocolate came from the Americas, so a Roman or a Viking eating them is wrong, and tea only reached Europe…», reached through the remembered sentence the question matched. What matched: the same action «come» (+2); the same place «americas» (+2); the same doer «potatoes» (+1). · the question and its options parsed, with trees and pragmatics
Test 4 · ★★★ · wrong ✗
★★★ Danny from Liverpool: «Boss film, sound, Columbus with a telescope on deck.» (boss and sound mean great) Spot it?
- 1. The deck; his ships had none — ← Mova's choice · no support
- 2. Nothing; it's all spot on — no support
- 3. The compass; he had none — no support
- 4. The telescope came in 1608 — ✓ 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 5 · ★★★ · wrong ✗
★★★ Ben: «Queen Victoria on a train? Mate, that's an anachronism.» Right?
- 1. Yes, queens never rode on trains — ← Mova's choice · no support
- 2. Yes, trains only came in 1950 — no support
- 3. No, she first rode a train in 1842 — ✓ the right answer · no support
- 4. Yes, trains came only after her death — 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 ✓
★★★ Your little cousin draws an ancient Olympic winner biting a gold medal. Best fix?
- 1. Swap the medal for an olive crown — ← Mova's choice · ✓ the right answer · no support
- 2. Add a podium and a flag — no support
- 3. Swap it for a silver medal — no support
- 4. Nothing; the drawing is right — 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 ✓
★★★ Four film scenes. Which one has NO anachronism?
- 1. Shevchenko sitting for a photo in 1858 — ← Mova's choice · ✓ the right answer · no support
- 2. A Viking drinking tea in 900 — no support
- 3. A Roman with a wristwatch — no support
- 4. Napoleon sitting for a photo in 1815 — 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 ✗
★★★ Grandad Bob: «In 1960 we had a telly, a phone box down the road and no internet.» Any anachronism?
- 1. The telly; TV came in 1990 — ← Mova's choice · no support
- 2. No internet; it was everywhere then — no support
- 3. The phone box; they came in 2000 — no support
- 4. None; all of that fits 1960 — ✓ 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 9 · ★★★ · wrong ✗
★★★ Ruby in Toronto: «Knight in 1100 checks his pocket watch, eh, totally legit.» What's up?
- 1. Watches were banned in castles back then — ← Mova's choice · score -2
- 2. Nothing; it's totally legit, eh — no support
- 3. Pocket watches came about 400 years later — ✓ the right answer · no support
- 4. Knights could not tell the time in any way at all — no support
Why: It took the question to ask what it is done to. It chose option 1 with score -2, the only option with support. Its support: lesson 81, line 2: «The White Rabbit pulls a watch out of his waistcoat pocket, because men then carried pocket watches on a chain, not watches on the wrist. The Hatter's tea-part…», reached through the remembered sentence the question matched. What matched: it fills the role the question asks for (+1). Against it: the same thing acted on «watch» (-1); a different action (counts against) (-2). The right option, 3, found no support in what it remembers. · the question and its options parsed, with trees and pragmatics
Test 10 · ★★★ · right ✓
★★★ Seren in Swansea: «Vikings in horned helmets, proper history, mun.» Fix it.
- 1. The horns were Roman, not Viking — no support
- 2. Only Viking kings ever wore horns — no support
- 3. The horns come from an opera of 1876 — ← Mova's choice · ✓ the right answer · score 8
- 4. The horns are right, but they were gold — no support
Why: It took the question to ask which statement is true. It chose option 3 with score 8, the only option with support. Its support: lesson 87, line 15: «Vikings did not wear horned helmets in battle; the horns come from costumes made for an opera in 1876.», reached through the same lesson line as the sentence the question matched. What matched: the same doer «horns» (+5); the same action «come» (+3). · the question and its options parsed, with trees and pragmatics
Test 11 · ★★★ · wrong ✗
★★★ A game's Roman market stall sells potatoes, wheat bread, olives and grapes. Which item is the slip?
- 1. Grapes — ← Mova's choice · no support
- 2. Olives — no support
- 3. Potatoes — ✓ the right answer · no support
- 4. Wheat bread — 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 12 · ★★★ · wrong ✗
★★★ Max: «Prince Volodymyr read a printed Bible in 988, there were literally a million copies.» What's real?
- 1. Yes, a million printed copies, he said literally — ← Mova's choice · no support
- 2. Printed, yes, in Lviv, in the year 988 — no support
- 3. Books were copied by hand then; printing in Ukraine began centuries later — ✓ the right answer · no support
- 4. Printed, yes, but only about ten copies — 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 ✗
Define the term «anachronism».
- 1. A calendar error of a single year — ← Mova's choice · no support
- 2. Something placed in a period to which it does not belong — ✓ the right answer · no support
- 3. An account wholly free from error — no support
- 4. An exceptionally ancient artefact — 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 instrument which Christopher Columbus could genuinely have employed in 1492.
- 1. A magnetic compass — ← Mova's choice · ✓ the right answer · no support
- 2. A camera — no support
- 3. A wristwatch — no support
- 4. An astronomical telescope — 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 ✗
Select the historical figure of whom no photograph can exist.
- 1. Taras Shevchenko — ← Mova's choice · no support
- 2. Queen Victoria — no support
- 3. President Abraham Lincoln — no support
- 4. Napoleon Bonaparte — ✓ 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 4 · formal language · wrong ✗
Determine which foodstuff could not have been eaten in ancient Rome.
- 1. Olives — ← Mova's choice · no support
- 2. The potato — ✓ the right answer · no support
- 3. Grapes — no support
- 4. Wheat bread — 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/87-olympiad-spot-the-anachronism/