--- title: Homework first? — a lesson of Mova's school · trees and pragmatics description: «Homework first?», a lesson of the everyday course of Mova's primary school, sentence by sentence with dependency trees and pragmatics. It begins: Kai did his spelling homework in four minutes and fifty seconds, a personal record. --- [Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/everyday/419-homework-first/) [home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [school](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/) / [Everyday](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/everyday/) / Homework first? # Homework first? Lesson 419 of the everyday course of Mova's primary school: 28 sentences, each with its syntax tree and pragmatics. The lessons are written for Mova, and their agreed trees are part of Mova corpus 0.4 (CC BY-SA 4.0). How Mova does on its tests: [the lesson at school](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/school-run/everyday/419-homework-first/). - [0](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/everyday/419-homework-first/0/) — Kai did his spelling homework in four minutes and fifty seconds, a personal record. - [1](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/everyday/419-homework-first/1/) — He spelt «because» three different ways on one page and wrote «Wednesday» as «Wensday». - [2](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/everyday/419-homework-first/2/) — Then he played Roblox and felt very clever. - [3](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/everyday/419-homework-first/3/) — On Thursday Mrs Okafor handed it back with «Please do this again, properly» in green pen, and Kai spent Thursday's game time redoing it. - [4](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/everyday/419-homework-first/4/) — Rushed homework comes back to you, usually on the day you least want it. - [5](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/everyday/419-homework-first/5/) — Priya tried the opposite: «Games first, homework after, I've got loads of time.» By eight o'clock she was yawning over her fractions, got four of them wrong and cried a bit into her pencil case. - [6](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/everyday/419-homework-first/6/) — Leo tried a third way: homework first, then Minecraft as a reward. - [7](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/everyday/419-homework-first/7/) — He finished faster, because the reward was waiting, and enjoyed the game more, because nothing was nagging at the back of his head. - [8](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/everyday/419-homework-first/8/) — Distractions were the real enemy. - [9](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/everyday/419-homework-first/9/) — Theo's phone buzzed every two minutes with his friends arguing about the GTA 6 trailer, a game rated 18 that none of them was even allowed to play. - [10](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/everyday/419-homework-first/10/) — He put the phone in the hall and finished in twenty minutes instead of an hour. - [11](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/everyday/419-homework-first/11/) — Ruby's mum has a rule that homework is only done when she has checked it; Ruby rolled her eyes, but her mum found two mistakes, Ruby fixed them, and the next day she got full marks. - [12](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/everyday/419-homework-first/12/) — Jayden forgot his homework completely after a big game night, owned up to his teacher, did it at lunch and missed playtime. - [13](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/everyday/419-homework-first/13/) — Games and homework are not always enemies. - [14](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/everyday/419-homework-first/14/) — Ollie learnt his seven and eight times tables from a maths game and got them all right in the test, to his own surprise. - [15](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/everyday/419-homework-first/15/) — Mia used a game set in ancient Egypt to start her history project and then checked every fact in library books, because games change history to make it exciting. - [17](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/everyday/419-homework-first/17/) — And Noah asked his dad for help with long division; they finished early and played a family game of Mario Kart, which his dad lost loudly. - [18](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/everyday/419-homework-first/18/) — Homework done in a rush is often full of mistakes and may have to be done again. - [19](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/everyday/419-homework-first/19/) — Doing homework first and playing after usually works better, because people are less tired and nothing is left hanging. - [20](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/everyday/419-homework-first/20/) — A game waiting as a reward can help you finish work faster. - [21](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/everyday/419-homework-first/21/) — Phones and messages nearby make homework take much longer. - [22](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/everyday/419-homework-first/22/) — Putting the phone in another room during homework is one of the simplest ways to focus. - [23](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/everyday/419-homework-first/23/) — Having a grown-up check homework catches mistakes before the teacher does. - [24](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/everyday/419-homework-first/24/) — Planning homework before a big game night stops it being forgotten. - [25](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/everyday/419-homework-first/25/) — Telling a teacher honestly about forgotten homework is better than making up an excuse. - [26](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/everyday/419-homework-first/26/) — Some games can help you practise things like times tables. - [27](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/everyday/419-homework-first/27/) — Games about history often change facts to make the story exciting, so facts should be checked in good books. - [28](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/everyday/419-homework-first/28/) — Asking for help when stuck is clever, not weak, and often makes homework faster. - ← previous: [Sleep and school mornings](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/everyday/418-sleep-and-school-mornings/) - next →: [Eyes, backs and thumbs](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/everyday/420-eyes-backs-and-thumbs/) - ↑ back to [Everyday](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/everyday/)