NACLO Scoring
When scoring your solutions, the judges will award credit for both
theory (understanding and explaining the patterns) and
practice (applying the theory to answer specific
questions). They will award about 40% for the theory, and about 60%
for the practice. Thus, you need to explain your reasoning in order to
get the full credit.
Example problem
Identify the pattern in Sentences A-D, and use it to complete Sentence E.
A. Dogs walk
B. Brian walks
C. Mary and Jessica walk
D. The bird walks
E. Phil's parents ....
Example scoring
Theory
1 point for discovering that "Dogs" and "Mary and Jessica"
describe multiple people/animals (plural), whereas "Brian" and "The
bird" refer to a single person/animal (singular).
1 point for realizing that there is no distinction in the
grammar between humans and animals.
1 point for figuring out that the verb "walk" takes an "s" if
the subject is singular; note that you have no data about 1st and
2nd person, so you can infer only that singular takes "s".
Practice
5 points for using "walk" to complete the last sentence.
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