--- title: Olympiad: how could you check it? ★★★ — a lesson of Mova's school · trees and pragmatics description: «Olympiad: how could you check it? ★★★», a lesson of the myths course of Mova's primary school, sentence by sentence with dependency trees and pragmatics. It begins: The last olympiad puzzles of the course don't ask "true or false?" but the harder question: how could you find out, and which result w --- [Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/myths/37-olympiad-how-could-you-check-it/) [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: how could you check it? ★★★ # Olympiad: how could you check it? ★★★ Lesson 37 of the myths course of Mova's primary school: 19 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/37-olympiad-how-could-you-check-it/). - [0](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/myths/37-olympiad-how-could-you-check-it/0/) — The last olympiad puzzles of the course don't ask "true or false?" but the harder question: how could you find out, and which result would settle it? - [1](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/myths/37-olympiad-how-could-you-check-it/1/) — A claim with "never", "always" or "only" is the easiest to crack: one balanced egg on an ordinary day in May breaks "eggs only balance on the equinox". - [2](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/myths/37-olympiad-how-could-you-check-it/2/) — A claim with "often" needs counting: drop the toast twenty times and write each landing down, because memory keeps the butter-down ones and loses the rest. - [3](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/myths/37-olympiad-how-could-you-check-it/3/) — The cleverest tests hide the answer from the people who judge: if nobody knows which party drink had the sugar, nobody's hopes can colour what they see. - [4](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/myths/37-olympiad-how-could-you-check-it/4/) — And a test must be able to say "no": if Gran only counts the matches her lucky socks won, the socks can never fail, so the test proves nothing. - [5](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/myths/37-olympiad-how-could-you-check-it/5/) — With patience an egg can be balanced on its end on any day of the year; the "only on the equinox" story was spread by a newspaper in 1945. - [6](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/myths/37-olympiad-how-could-you-check-it/6/) — One true counter-example is enough to break a claim that says "never", "always" or "only". - [7](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/myths/37-olympiad-how-could-you-check-it/7/) — The Empire State Building is hit by lightning about 20 to 25 times a year, so lightning can strike the same place again and again. - [8](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/myths/37-olympiad-how-could-you-check-it/8/) — In one study, mothers were told their young sons had drunk sugar when the drink had none, and they still judged the boys more hyper; careful studies find that sugar does not make children hyperactive. - [9](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/myths/37-olympiad-how-could-you-check-it/9/) — A fair test changes only one thing, keeps everything else the same, and is repeated many times with the results written down. - [10](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/myths/37-olympiad-how-could-you-check-it/10/) — Every taste can be sensed wherever there are taste buds; the old tongue map came from a mistranslated German study of 1901. - [11](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/myths/37-olympiad-how-could-you-check-it/11/) — The Moon looks bigger near the horizon, but a coin held at arm's length, or a photo, shows it is the same size. - [12](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/myths/37-olympiad-how-could-you-check-it/12/) — Each hair of a polar bear's fur is colourless, and the skin underneath is black. - [13](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/myths/37-olympiad-how-could-you-check-it/13/) — Scientists find traces of paint on ancient Greek and Roman statues with special lights and microscopes. - [14](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/myths/37-olympiad-how-could-you-check-it/14/) — Scientists still bounce lasers off mirrors left on the Moon by the Apollo astronauts between 1969 and 1972. - [15](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/myths/37-olympiad-how-could-you-check-it/15/) — Paul Revere rode in 1775; the "The British are coming!" version comes mostly from a poem written in 1860. - [16](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/myths/37-olympiad-how-could-you-check-it/16/) — No Viking-age helmet with horns has ever been dug up; the Gjermundbu helmet found in Norway is a rounded cap. - [17](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/myths/37-olympiad-how-could-you-check-it/17/) — Stars twinkle because moving air bends their light; seen from space, above the air, they shine steadily. - [18](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/myths/37-olympiad-how-could-you-check-it/18/) — Headlines like "Chocolate makes you clever!" often come from a small study, sometimes on animals; ask who was tested, how many, and compared with what. - ← previous: [Olympiad: which claim is true? ★★★](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/myths/36-olympiad-which-claim-is-true/) - ↑ back to [Myths](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/myths/)