--- title: Olympiad: time and calendar puzzles ★★★ — a lesson of Mova's school · trees and pragmatics description: «Olympiad: time and calendar puzzles ★★★», a lesson of the world course of Mova's primary school, sentence by sentence with dependency trees and pragmatics. It begins: Time puzzles look like sums, but most of them hide one trap: a gap counted as a moment, a year 0 that never was, or a clock that jum --- [Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/world/192-olympiad-time-and-calendar-puzzles/) [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/) / [World](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/world/) / Olympiad: time and calendar puzzles ★★★ # Olympiad: time and calendar puzzles ★★★ Lesson 192 of the world course of Mova's primary school: 20 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/world/192-olympiad-time-and-calendar-puzzles/). - [0](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/world/192-olympiad-time-and-calendar-puzzles/0/) — Time puzzles look like sums, but most of them hide one trap: a gap counted as a moment, a year 0 that never was, or a clock that jumped forward in the night. - [2](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/world/192-olympiad-time-and-calendar-puzzles/2/) — The week is a merry-go-round of 7 seats, so big jumps shrink: 100 days is 14 whole weeks and 2 days, and only the 2 days move the weekday on. - [3](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/world/192-olympiad-time-and-calendar-puzzles/3/) — Picture the church clock striking 6: bong, gap, bong, gap... - [4](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/world/192-olympiad-time-and-calendar-puzzles/4/) — There are 6 bongs but only 5 gaps, and the gaps are what take the time. - [5](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/world/192-olympiad-time-and-calendar-puzzles/5/) — It is the same fence-post trap as posts and rails. - [6](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/world/192-olympiad-time-and-calendar-puzzles/6/) — Calendars have their own traps too: 2100 will skip 29 February, the 21st century began in 2001, not 2000, and from 10 BC to AD 10 is 19 years, because no year 0 sits in the middle. - [7](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/world/192-olympiad-time-and-calendar-puzzles/7/) — People also stretch time when they talk. - [8](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/world/192-olympiad-time-and-calendar-puzzles/8/) — "I've waited forever" or "a million years" is not a number to use; the number that counts is the one on the clock, or the last one someone says after correcting themselves. - [9](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/world/192-olympiad-time-and-calendar-puzzles/9/) — 100 days is 14 weeks and 2 days, so 100 days after a Wednesday is a Friday. - [10](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/world/192-olympiad-time-and-calendar-puzzles/10/) — If the day before yesterday was Thursday, today is Saturday and the day after tomorrow is Monday. - [11](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/world/192-olympiad-time-and-calendar-puzzles/11/) — A clock striking 6 makes 5 gaps between its bongs; if that takes 5 seconds, each gap is 1 second, so striking 12, with 11 gaps, takes 11 seconds. - [12](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/world/192-olympiad-time-and-calendar-puzzles/12/) — A 24-hour digital clock shows four digits all the same 3 times a day: 00:00, 11:11 and 22:22. - [13](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/world/192-olympiad-time-and-calendar-puzzles/13/) — March has 31 days, which is 4 weeks and 3 days, so if 1 March is a Monday, 1 April is a Thursday. - [14](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/world/192-olympiad-time-and-calendar-puzzles/14/) — 2000 was a leap year because it divides by 400, but 2100 will not be one, though it divides by 4. - [15](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/world/192-olympiad-time-and-calendar-puzzles/15/) — Someone who is 9 now was 6 three years ago and will be 12 in three years, exactly twice 6. - [16](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/world/192-olympiad-time-and-calendar-puzzles/16/) — On the night the clocks go forward, going to bed at 22:00 and waking when the clock says 07:00 gives only 8 hours of sleep. - [17](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/world/192-olympiad-time-and-calendar-puzzles/17/) — There is no year 0, so a Roman born in 20 BC turned 39 on his birthday in AD 20. - [18](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/world/192-olympiad-time-and-calendar-puzzles/18/) — In winter New York is 5 hours behind London and Kyiv is 2 hours ahead of London, so Kyiv is 7 hours ahead of New York. - [19](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/world/192-olympiad-time-and-calendar-puzzles/19/) — A coin stamped "25 BC" must be a fake, because people living then could not know that a man would be born 25 years later and years would be counted from him. - [21](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/world/192-olympiad-time-and-calendar-puzzles/21/) — Words people use: "fixin' to" (southern USA) means about to; "tamping" (Wales) means furious; "dreich" (Scotland) means grey and drizzly; "servo" (Australia) means a petrol station; "bday" is short for birthday. - ← previous: [A fair trial, and the Wonderland court that gets it all wrong](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/world/191-a-fair-trial-and-the-wonderland-court-that-gets-it-all-wrong/) - next →: [Olympiad: logic traps and if-then ★★★](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/world/193-olympiad-logic-traps-and-if-then/) - ↑ back to [World](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/world/)