---
title: Ancient Greece: city-states, Athens and Sparta — how Mova does on the tests · History
description: Lesson 11 of the history course of Mova's primary school: 4 of 11 tests right, exam 2 of 4, every question with the options, the student's choice, the right answer and why it chose.
---

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# Ancient Greece: city-states, Athens and Sparta

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**Tests:** 4 of 11 right · **Exam:** 2 of 4 right · **Kind:** plain · **Understood:** 6 of 15 · **Run:** 2026-10-18, commit `f3c23ea72`

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Lesson 11 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](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/11-ancient-greece-city-states-athens-and-sparta/).

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Every question of this lesson and each of its options parsed by Mova, with trees and pragmatics: [the lesson's questions in the corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/questions/history/11-ancient-greece-city-states-athens-and-sparta/).

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### Test 1 · wrong ✗ {#t1}

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bro watched 300 and says only 300 guys fought at Thermopylae. right?

- **1.** No, there were 3 million Spartans — **← Mova's choice** · no support
- **2.** Yes, and they all lived — no support
- **3.** No, several thousand other Greeks fought too — **✓ the right answer** · no support
- **4.** Yes, exactly 300 and no more, the film is right — no support

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**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](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/questions/history/11-ancient-greece-city-states-athens-and-sparta/t1/)

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### Test 2 · right ✓ {#t2}

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Your mate says the wooden horse of Troy is proven history. What is fair to say?

- **1.** It is in every history book as a proven fact — no support
- **2.** Homer filmed it — no support
- **3.** Archaeologists dug up the whole wooden horse — no support
- **4.** It is a story from legend, not proven history — **← Mova's choice** · **✓ the right answer** · score 7

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**Why:** It took the question to ask which statement is true. It chose option 4 with score 7, the only option with support. Its support: lesson 11, line 9: «Homer's poems tell of the Greeks besieging Troy for ten years and of the hero Odysseus's long journey home; the wooden horse is a story from legend, not proven…», reached through the same lesson line as the sentence the question matched. What matched: the same doer «wooden horse» (+2); the same thing acted on «story» (+2); the same place «legend» (+2); the same light verb (be, have, do, get, go) (+1). · [the question and its options parsed, with trees and pragmatics](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/questions/history/11-ancient-greece-city-states-athens-and-sparta/t2/)

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### Test 3 · wrong ✗ {#t3}

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If Greece were one flat plain, what might have been different?

- **1.** There would be no sea anywhere near it — **← Mova's choice** · no support
- **2.** It might have been easier to unite into one country — **✓ the right answer** · no support
- **3.** The Greeks would all have spoken Chinese — no support
- **4.** Nobody would ever have wanted to live there — no support

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**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](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/questions/history/11-ancient-greece-city-states-athens-and-sparta/t3/)

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### Test 4 · right ✓ {#t4}

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Two city-states argue a lot but a Persian army comes. What did the Greeks often do?

- **1.** Leave Greece for ever — no support
- **2.** Join together against the outside enemy — **← Mova's choice** · **✓ the right answer** · score 7
- **3.** Join the Persians at once and fight their neighbours — score 4
- **4.** Ask Rome for help — no support

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**Why:** It took the question to ask what is done. It chose option 2 with score 7, against 4 for the next best. Its support: lesson 11, line 2: «They often quarrelled, like neighbouring schools with their own rules and uniforms, but they shared a language, the same gods and the Olympic Games, and joined…», reached through the same lesson line as the sentence the question matched. What matched: it fills the role the question asks for (+3); the same action «join» (+2); the same circumstance (+2); the same property (+1). Against it: a different doer (counts against) (-1). · [the question and its options parsed, with trees and pragmatics](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/questions/history/11-ancient-greece-city-states-athens-and-sparta/t4/)

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### Test 5 · wrong ✗ {#t5}

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Why did Sparta need the helots?

- **1.** The helots were their teachers — no support
- **2.** Sparta had no land at all to farm — **← Mova's choice** · score 8
- **3.** The Spartans trained as soldiers and did not farm — **✓ the right answer** · no support
- **4.** The helots were the kings and rulers of Sparta — no support

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**Why:** It took the question to ask why something happens (its cause). It chose option 2 with score 8, the only option with support. Its support: lesson 11, line 12: «Sparta relied on a huge enslaved people, the helots, to farm for them.», reached through the cause of the sentence the question matched. What matched: the same action «farm» (+4); the same doer «sparta» (+4). The right option, 3, found no support in what it remembers. · [the question and its options parsed, with trees and pragmatics](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/questions/history/11-ancient-greece-city-states-athens-and-sparta/t5/)

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### Test 6 · wrong ✗ {#t6}

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Why would Athens want a strong navy?

- **1.** It had no coast at all — **← Mova's choice** · no support
- **2.** Ships were cheaper than shoes — no support
- **3.** The gods banned armies — no support
- **4.** It lived by trade and the sea — **✓ the right answer** · no support

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**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](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/questions/history/11-ancient-greece-city-states-athens-and-sparta/t6/)

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### Test 7 · right ✓ {#t7}

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The Marathon runner story. What do historians say?

- **1.** The battle is real, the runner story is a later legend — **← Mova's choice** · **✓ the right answer** · score 12
- **2.** Both the battle and the runner are made up — no support
- **3.** The race only happened in 2004 at the Olympics — no support
- **4.** The runner was really the Persian king — no support

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**Why:** It took the question to ask what it is done to. It chose option 1 with score 12, the only option with support. Its support: lesson 11, line 4: «Together they faced the mighty Persian Empire at Marathon and Thermopylae. Some stories about these times, like the wooden horse of Troy, the Minotaur or the f…», reached through what was said in the sentence the question matched. What matched: it fills the role the question asks for (+6); the same thing acted on «legend» (+4); the same light verb (be, have, do, get, go) (+2). · [the question and its options parsed, with trees and pragmatics](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/questions/history/11-ancient-greece-city-states-athens-and-sparta/t7/)

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### Test 8 · wrong ✗ {#t8}

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Minotaur in my game, half bull half man. Real or nah?

- **1.** Real, found in Crete in 1900 — **← Mova's choice** · no support
- **2.** A myth; nobody ever leapt over bulls on Crete — no support
- **3.** A myth; the bull-leaping was real — **✓ the right answer** · no support
- **4.** Real, but it was a cow — no support

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**Why:** Nothing it remembers matched the question, so it guessed: it took the first option shown. · [the question and its options parsed, with trees and pragmatics](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/questions/history/11-ancient-greece-city-states-athens-and-sparta/t8/)

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### Test 9 · wrong ✗ {#t9}

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Spartan girls did sports too. Why?

- **1.** Girls were the only soldiers in Sparta — **← Mova's choice** · score 6
- **2.** They were training to row in the navy — score 4
- **3.** It was a punishment for being lazy — no support
- **4.** Spartans wanted them to be strong — **✓ the right answer** · no support

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**Why:** It took the question to ask why something happens (its cause). It chose option 1 with score 6, against 4 for the next best. Its support: lesson 11, line 11: «In Sparta boys left home at seven to train hard as soldiers, and Spartan girls also did sports to be strong.», reached through the cause of the sentence the question matched. What matched: the same doer «spartan girls» (+4); the same light verb (be, have, do, get, go) (+2). The right option, 4, found no support in what it remembers. · [the question and its options parsed, with trees and pragmatics](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/questions/history/11-ancient-greece-city-states-athens-and-sparta/t9/)

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### Test 10 · wrong ✗ {#t10}

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Which city would a sailor, an artist and a thinker most like to live in?

- **1.** Troy — **← Mova's choice** · no support
- **2.** Persepolis — no support
- **3.** Sparta — no support
- **4.** Athens — **✓ the right answer** · no support

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**Why:** Nothing it remembers matched the question, so it guessed: it took the first option shown. · [the question and its options parsed, with trees and pragmatics](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/questions/history/11-ancient-greece-city-states-athens-and-sparta/t10/)

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### Test 11 · right ✓ {#t11}

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Why could a narrow pass help a small army against a huge one?

- **1.** Only a few enemies can fight at once there — **← Mova's choice** · **✓ the right answer** · no support
- **2.** Big armies cannot see in mountains — no support
- **3.** The pass was full of food — no support
- **4.** Narrow passes are always uphill both ways for enemies — no support

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**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](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/questions/history/11-ancient-greece-city-states-athens-and-sparta/t11/)

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### Exam question 1 · formal language · right ✓ {#e1}

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Identify the principal reason for which ancient Greece consisted of numerous independent city-states rather than a unified realm.

- **1.** The terrain was divided by mountains and sea — **← Mova's choice** · **✓ the right answer** · no support
- **2.** The Persians prohibited it — no support
- **3.** The inhabitants spoke mutually unintelligible languages — no support
- **4.** A royal decree forbade unification — no support

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**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](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/questions/history/11-ancient-greece-city-states-athens-and-sparta/e1/)

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### Exam question 2 · formal language · wrong ✗ {#e2}

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Select the response consistent with the established facts concerning the battle of Thermopylae in 480 BC.

- **1.** The Persians were defeated within one hour — **← Mova's choice** · no support
- **2.** The battle was fought at sea near Troy — no support
- **3.** The Spartans were accompanied by several thousand other Greeks — **✓ the right answer** · no support
- **4.** Exactly three hundred combatants took part on the Greek side — no support

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**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](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/questions/history/11-ancient-greece-city-states-athens-and-sparta/e2/)

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### Exam question 3 · formal language · right ✓ {#e3}

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Which of the following statements most accurately characterises the contrast between Athens and Sparta?

- **1.** Both cities esteemed solely their navies and despised armies — score 8
- **2.** Athens forbade all commerce — score 8
- **3.** Athens esteemed debate, commerce and its navy; Sparta esteemed discipline and its army — **← Mova's choice** · **✓ the right answer** · score 12
- **4.** Sparta was renowned for its philosophers and theatre — score 10

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**Why:** It took the question to ask who or what does it. It chose option 3 with score 12, against 10 for the next best. Its support: lesson 11, line 13: «Athens loved debate, trade, art and its navy; Sparta loved discipline, obedience and its army.», reached through the remembered sentence the question matched. What matched: it fills the role the question asks for (+6); the same doer «sparta» (+4); the same thing acted on «discipline» (+4). Against it: a different action (counts against) (-2). · [the question and its options parsed, with trees and pragmatics](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/questions/history/11-ancient-greece-city-states-athens-and-sparta/e3/)

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### Exam question 4 · formal language · wrong ✗ {#e4}

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Ascertain the status of the helots within Spartan society.

- **1.** Foreign merchants resident in Athens — **← Mova's choice** · no support
- **2.** Priests of Athena upon the Acropolis — no support
- **3.** The hereditary kings of Sparta — no support
- **4.** An enslaved population compelled to cultivate the land — **✓ the right answer** · no support

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**Why:** Nothing it remembers matched the question, so it guessed: it took the first option shown. · [the question and its options parsed, with trees and pragmatics](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/questions/history/11-ancient-greece-city-states-athens-and-sparta/e4/)

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