--- title: Olympiad: which claim is true? ★★★ — a lesson of Mova's school · trees and pragmatics description: «Olympiad: which claim is true? ★★★», a lesson of the myths course of Mova's primary school, sentence by sentence with dependency trees and pragmatics. It begins: This olympiad block mixes the whole course into puzzles: four friends, four claims, and usually only one of them survives a careful look. --- [Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/myths/36-olympiad-which-claim-is-true/) [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/) / [Myths](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/myths/) / Olympiad: which claim is true? ★★★ # Olympiad: which claim is true? ★★★ Lesson 36 of the myths course of Mova's primary school: 18 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/myths/36-olympiad-which-claim-is-true/). - [0](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/myths/36-olympiad-which-claim-is-true/0/) — This olympiad block mixes the whole course into puzzles: four friends, four claims, and usually only one of them survives a careful look. - [1](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/myths/36-olympiad-which-claim-is-true/1/) — The trick is never to trust the loudest voice; check each claim against what you already know, then count, turn or line things up to be sure. - [2](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/myths/36-olympiad-which-claim-is-true/2/) — Picture the quiz card: "Amy says camels keep water in their humps, Ben says bats are blind, Cara says owls can turn their heads three-quarters of a circle." Only Cara is right, and you can prove the other two wrong. - [3](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/myths/36-olympiad-which-claim-is-true/3/) — Watch the wording too: "a million times" is hyperbole and is never a number to count, while "a bit weaker" can be a plain, true understatement. - [4](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/myths/36-olympiad-which-claim-is-true/4/) — Some puzzles have two right halves: Everest and Mauna Kea can both be "the tallest" until you ask, measured from where? - [5](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/myths/36-olympiad-which-claim-is-true/5/) — A camel's hump stores fat, not water; all bats can see; an owl can turn its head about 270 degrees, three-quarters of a circle. - [6](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/myths/36-olympiad-which-claim-is-true/6/) — Sound travels about one kilometre every three seconds, so counting the seconds between a flash and its thunder tells you how far away the lightning is. - [7](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/myths/36-olympiad-which-claim-is-true/7/) — Spiders have eight legs and insects such as ants have six; a ladybird's spots show its kind, so a seven-spot ladybird always has seven. - [8](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/myths/36-olympiad-which-claim-is-true/8/) — The Earth is nearest the Sun in early January, when it is winter in Britain and summer in Australia, so distance cannot be what makes summer. - [9](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/myths/36-olympiad-which-claim-is-true/9/) — At full moon the whole near side of the Moon is lit and the far side is dark; at new moon the far side is fully lit, so the far side is not always dark. - [10](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/myths/36-olympiad-which-claim-is-true/10/) — The last big dinosaurs died out about 66 million years ago and humans appeared only about 300,000 years ago, so no person ever met a living big dinosaur. - [11](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/myths/36-olympiad-which-claim-is-true/11/) — In the Salem witch trials of 1692 nineteen people were hanged and one man was crushed with stones; nobody was burned there. - [12](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/myths/36-olympiad-which-claim-is-true/12/) — Vikings sailed to North America around the year 1000; horned Viking helmets were first made for an opera in 1876, almost 900 years later. - [13](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/myths/36-olympiad-which-claim-is-true/13/) — Gravity at the International Space Station is about 90% as strong as on the ground; astronauts float because they are falling round the Earth. - [14](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/myths/36-olympiad-which-claim-is-true/14/) — Mount Everest has the highest peak above sea level, 8,849 metres; from its base on the sea floor, Mauna Kea in Hawaii is over 10,000 metres tall. - [15](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/myths/36-olympiad-which-claim-is-true/15/) — On ordinary flat world maps Greenland looks about as big as Africa, but Africa is about 14 times bigger. - [16](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/myths/36-olympiad-which-claim-is-true/16/) — Only honeybees usually die after stinging people; bumblebees and wasps can sting more than once. - [17](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/myths/36-olympiad-which-claim-is-true/17/) — Books printed before 2006 list nine planets because Pluto was called a planet until then; that is out of date, not a lie. - ← previous: [I was wrong: changing your mind](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/myths/35-i-was-wrong-changing-your-mind/) - next →: [Olympiad: how could you check it? ★★★](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/myths/37-olympiad-how-could-you-check-it/) - ↑ back to [Myths](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/myths/)