Skill: course-build → write-mcqs → write-explanation, design-check-sequence @ a538c92
Topic 22 — Measuring the weather — the PP100's ten question types, with their exemplars
What this page is. James approves a bank's question TYPES before the bank is generated (vault: A bank is reviewed as its question types first, one exemplar each, 28 Sep 2026). This sheet writes the exemplars in full, exactly as they sit in content/G3T22.py (PP100, flagged TYPE_SHEET_ONLY). Ten types for six atoms, one exemplar each — the ceiling, because the topic has six atoms and three of them are instruments read from a drawing. No other bank item exists yet. Once the types stand, about fifty items are generated from them, varying the day, the readings, the names and the place, easy-heavy.
The table has five columns (28 Sep night, from Topic 23's seam review): Day | Temperature (°F) | Wind from | How windy | Rain (mm). How windy holds one of three agreed words — calm, breezy, windy (calm the least wind, windy the most) — the class's own observation, no instrument; Topic 23 needs it to say "windier". Row items carry the word in its place; the day chip on a three-instrument row gives it.
Revised 28 Sep 2026 (night) after the non-author review (REVIEW_G3T22_2026-09-28.md): three exemplars were lesson items with a noun changed and are re-instanced (B1) — PP-2 now sits on a fresh PLACE (the vane on Hollie's barn, a roof line drawn under the dial), PP-6 asks a west wind in words, PP-8 offers four places the lessons never used (a sunny car roof, a shady tree branch, the cooler box, a bowl of soup); PP-3's distractors are now nameable errors (F2); PP-5 asks a different day so the eight MCQ keys spread; every gauge item states that the gauge was emptied (S10); PP-10's accept list is generated (S8). A four-letter vane has only four instances — N, E, S, W — so type 3's bank variety comes from the place and the framing (a barn, a harbour, a school roof, a lighthouse; "Here is the vane on…"), never from the letter alone; type 4 the same. The design-move inventory at the foot of this sheet is the check.
James's rulings applied. Hard items are typed, never MCQs (28 Sep night): one numeric-entry type (the gauge reading, with its unit) and one text-entry type (the day with the most rain). Easy and medium are four-option MCQs. Every instrument reading is drawn (a thermometer, a vane, a gauge, a table); no stem leans on a video; no option bundles a verdict with a reason; every stem is a positive question; no item figure carries a verdict chip, a wind streak or a highlight; every drawn level is one the scale gives (figures.py asserts it); every exemplar is a fresh instance — no lesson, quiz or practice scene reappears. Nothing James has rejected appears here.
How to read a type line. Each says what the stem asks, what the four options are (the kind of thing), and gives its exemplar scene. Every MCQ has a why (no per-option feedback in the bank; the engine prints Correct / Not quite). Tags follow depth of reasoning: easy = one instrument named for one job, or one reading off one drawing, or one look-up; medium = the rule applied the other way round (the wind in words → the letter), the setup applied to fresh places, or three readings placed in one row; hard = the number produced on the count-in-1s trap level, or two steps (compare down a column, then read back to the day) with the answer typed.
The ten types
| Type | Item | Atom | Tag | Form | The stem asks… | The options / the accept | Exemplar scene |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | PP-1 | EAR3-017 (the same form serves EAR3-020 as "which instrument fills the Temperature column") | easy | MCQ | which instrument does the named job | four instruments: a wind vane / a rain gauge / a thermometer / a ruler | Hollie at the bus stop wants how warm the air is |
| 2 | PP-8 | EAR3-017 | medium | MCQ | where the thermometer goes so that it measures the air | four places, one in shade: a sunny car roof / a shady tree branch / the cooler box / a bowl of soup | Fitz at the campsite |
| 3 | PP-2 | EAR3-018 | easy | MCQ, drawn | a drawn vane at a named place: where is the wind from | north / east / south / west | the vane on Hollie's barn, the point on the N |
| 4 | PP-6 | EAR3-018 | medium | MCQ | a named wind in words: which letter does the point sit on | N / E / S / W | a west wind across the farm |
| 5 | PP-3 | EAR3-019 | easy | MCQ, drawn | a drawn gauge, empty yesterday: how much rain has fallen | four amounts in order: 22 (counted in 1s, or one mark short) / 24 (key) / 26 (one mark over) / 30 (the next number) | the top two marks above the 20 |
| 6 | PP-9 | EAR3-019 + Topic 17's mark-worth (SR3-P01) | hard | numeric, drawn | a drawn gauge: type the number of millimeters | acc(36, "mm"): 36 and the unit in a child's forms | the top three marks above the 30 (33 by the trap) |
| 7 | PP-4 | SR3-010 | easy | MCQ, drawn | a reading in words and a drawn table with headings only: which heading does it go under | the four reading headings: Temperature (°F) / Wind from / How windy / Rain (mm) (Day holds no reading) | Hollie's 8 mm |
| 8 | PP-7 | EAR3-020 + SR3-010 (pair) | medium | MCQ, drawn | three drawn instruments for one day (the day chip gives the wind word), the gauge emptied the evening before: which row is right | four rows, the same entries in four orders; the How windy word sits in its place in every row | Sunday at camp: 60 °F, N, breezy, 4 mm |
| 9 | PP-5 | SR3-011 | easy | MCQ, drawn | a drawn table: what was the value on a named day | four values from the table's column, in order | Thursday's temperature at camp (74 °F) |
| 10 | PP-10 | SR3-011 + Topic 2's biggest-to-smallest (MOT3-026) (pair) | hard | text, drawn | a drawn table: on which day did the most rain fall — type the day | day_accept("Wednesday"): the day, its short form, with or without "on" | the beach week: 0, 4, 30, 16, 0 |
Hard because (type 6): the number is produced, not recognised, on the level where counting the marks in 1s gives a different answer (33 for 36); the student must know a mark is worth 2 and count up from the number below. Hard because (type 10): two steps — read every value down the Rain column and pick the biggest, then read back along that row to the Day column — and the day is typed. Medium because (type 2): the setup rule is applied to fresh places, one of which (the sunny roof) gives a wrong reading for a reason the lesson stated. Medium because (type 4): the rule is run backwards (from the named wind to the letter). Medium because (type 8): three readings are read from three drawings and each placed in its column at once.
Bank notes for the generator. Type 1: keep the bank instances on the thermometer's job and on "which instrument fills the Temperature (°F) column" — for the wind and rain jobs the instrument's name contains the job word (wind → wind vane, rain → rain gauge), so those instances are word matches, not sorts (review S1). Type 3: four letters, so vary the place and the framing; never two bank items on one letter with only the place name changed. Type 8 and the typed readings from a three-instrument row: a typed reading from the scaled row sits on a numbered line (70, 10), or the instrument is drawn at full size beside the row (review S9). Every gauge stem carries the setup ("the gauge was emptied yesterday"). Type 7: a stem that names the unit ("8 mm") lets the student match it to the heading "(mm)" — that is the heading's own teaching, so the type is easy; a medium form gives the reading with no unit ("Hollie read 8 on her rain gauge"). Type 8: one distractor per bank item may swap the wind word and the letter ("Sun · 60 · breezy · N · 4"), so the How windy slot does some sorting work (cold read A's note).
Coverage (every atom alone, and the pairs)
| Atom | Types testing it alone | Pair types |
|---|---|---|
| EAR3-017 the thermometer measures how warm the air is | 1, 2 | — (a typed outdoor reading pairs it with Topic 17's SR3-023 if James wants an eleventh type; not on this sheet) |
| EAR3-018 the wind vane | 3, 4 | — |
| EAR3-019 the rain gauge | 5 | 6 (with Topic 17's mark-worth) |
| SR3-010 record in a table | 7 | 8 (with EAR3-020) |
| EAR3-020 record today's weather | 1 (which instrument fills a named column) | 8 (with SR3-010) |
| SR3-011 find a value in a table | 9 | 10 (with Topic 2's ordering) |
At most two alone-types per atom (James: "unlikely that you're going to need more than two question types per atom"). Order in the file: easy PP-1…PP-5 → medium PP-6…PP-8 → hard PP-9, PP-10. Keys of the eight MCQs, in file order: PP-1 C · PP-2 A · PP-3 B · PP-4 D · PP-5 D · PP-6 D · PP-7 A · PP-8 B (two A, two B, one C, three D — no letter over 35 %; the fixed sets N/E/S/W and the four headings keep their natural order, so their keys land where the instance puts them). Typed items: 2 of 10 on the sheet; in a bank of about fifty, types 6 and 10 supply 12–15 typed items on fresh levels (every even mm level 2–50 not used by a lesson or quiz) and fresh tables, and medium look-ups of type 9 may be typed too.
Design-move inventory (every move on the page, then the bank's)
| Move (what the student does with what) | Lesson-side instances | Bank exemplar |
|---|---|---|
| name the instrument for a stated job | L01 q6 (Topic 17's tools as distractors), L02 q7, L03 q6, L05 q1, q9, q11, PR-1 (the pool) | PP-1: Hollie at the bus stop, four weather-and-measuring instruments — a new scene and a new option set |
| where the thermometer goes to measure the air | L01 q7 (the sun claim, drawn), L01 q11 (sun / cupboard / shade) | PP-8: Fitz at the campsite, four places none of which the lesson used (car roof, tree branch, cooler, soup) |
| read the letter under the point on a drawn vane | L02 q1 S, q2 W, q4 N, q6 E (bare vanes), L02-V E, PR-2 S, SUMMARY-1 W on the school roof | PP-2: the vane on Hollie's barn (a roof line, a place chip), N — fresh by place and framing |
| a named wind in words → the letter | L02 q5 ("The wind blows from the south… the vane's point") | PP-6: "A west wind blows across the farm" — the coined phrase, a different letter, a place |
| read a drawn gauge (MCQ) | L03 q7 (the empty gauge: 0 / 2 / 10), L03-V (10: 12 / 20 / 10), SUMMARY-2 (28: 24 / 28 / 30) | PP-3: 24 mm with the count-in-1s trap as an option — the only MCQ gauge item whose distractors are the three nameable errors |
| read a drawn gauge, typed | L03 q2 8, q3 22, q5 30, q8 4, q10 16; L05 q5 10; PR-3 18 | PP-9: 36 mm — the only level three marks above a number, where the 1s trap gives 33 |
| which heading a reading goes under | L04 q1 (10 mm, drawn headings), q2 (W), PR-5 (26 mm) | PP-4: Hollie's 8 mm on Hollie's own drawn table |
| which row is right for a day (three drawn instruments, the wind word on the day chip) | L05 q6 Sunday, q7 Monday (Corin's garden — Saturday is the typed scaffold and no row item prints its 70 or 10), PR-7 Monday at the park | PP-7: Sunday at camp — a new place, a new dataset |
| look up a named value in a drawn table | L06 q2, q3, q4, q5, q10 (Grandma's), L06-V (the class week), PR-4 (the park), SUMMARY-3 (the farm) | PP-5: Thursday's temperature at camp |
| the biggest in a column → its day | L06 q7 (the warmest at Grandma's), PR-11 (most rain at the park) | PP-10: most rain at the beach, typed |
| claims (bare yes / no) | L01 q5, q7, q9; L02 q3; L03 q4, q9; L04 q4, q6, q7; L05 q8, q10; L06 q8; PR-6 | none on the sheet — a bare claim has two options; the bank's MCQs need four |
| the term by recall | L02 q10, L03 q12, L04 q10–q11, PR-12…PR-15 | none — the practice set's job |
No bank exemplar shares a scene with a lesson, quiz or practice item, and no two exemplars share a move.
The exemplars, in full
Type 1 — PP-1 · EAR3-017 · easy
Stem: Hollie wants to know how warm the air is at the bus stop. Which instrument does she use?
- a wind vane
- a rain gauge
- a thermometer ← key
- a ruler
Why: A thermometer measures how warm the thing it is in is. / Hung in the air, in the shade, it measures how warm the air is. / So Hollie uses a thermometer.
Type 3 — PP-2 · EAR3-018 · easy · drawing vane_pp_barn
Stem: Here is the wind vane on Hollie's barn. Where is the wind from?
- north ← key
- east
- south
- west
Why: The arrow points into the wind. / The point sits on the N. / So the wind is from the north.
Type 5 — PP-3 · EAR3-019 · easy · drawing gauge_pp_24
Stem: The rain gauge was empty yesterday. How much rain has fallen since?
- 22 mm
- 24 mm ← key
- 26 mm
- 30 mm
Why: The number below the top is 20. / The top is two marks above the 20. / Each mark is worth 2: 22, 24. / So 24 mm of rain fell.
Type 7 — PP-4 · SR3-010 · easy · drawing table_pp_headings
Stem: Hollie read 8 mm on her rain gauge. Which heading does the 8 go under?
- Temperature (°F)
- Wind from
- How windy
- Rain (mm) ← key
Why: The 8 came from the rain gauge. / The heading for the rain gauge's readings is Rain (mm), not How windy or Wind from. / So the 8 goes under Rain (mm).
Type 9 — PP-5 · SR3-011 · easy · drawing table_pp_camp
Stem: Look at the camp weather table. What was the temperature on Thursday?
- 56 °F
- 60 °F
- 64 °F
- 74 °F ← key
Why: Find Thursday's row. / Find the Temperature (°F) column. / The box where they meet holds 74. / So Thursday was 74 °F.
Type 4 — PP-6 · EAR3-018 · medium
Stem: A west wind blows across the farm. Which letter does the wind vane's point sit on?
- N
- E
- S
- W ← key
Why: A west wind blows from the west. / The arrow points into the wind. / So the point sits on the W.
Type 8 — PP-7 · EAR3-020 + SR3-010 · medium · drawing three_instruments_pp
Stem: Look at the three instruments at camp on Sunday, the gauge emptied the evening before. Which row is right for Sunday?
- Sun · 60 · N · breezy · 4 ← key
- Sun · 4 · N · breezy · 60
- Sun · 60 · 4 · breezy · N
- Sun · N · 60 · breezy · 4
Why: The thermometer reads 60 °F: Temperature. / The point sits on the N: Wind from. / The day chip says breezy: How windy. / The gauge reads 4 mm: Rain. / So the row is Sun · 60 · N · breezy · 4.
Type 2 — PP-8 · EAR3-017 · medium
Stem: Fitz wants his thermometer to measure how warm the air is at the campsite. Where does he put it?
- on the sunny roof of the car
- hanging from a shady tree branch ← key
- inside the cooler box
- in a bowl of soup
Why: A thermometer measures how warm the thing it is in is. / On the sunny roof, the sun heats the thermometer itself. / In the cooler or the soup, it measures the cooler's air or the soup. / Hanging in the shade, it measures the air.
Type 6 — PP-9 · EAR3-019 + SR3-P01 · hard · numeric entry · drawing gauge_pp_36
Stem: The rain gauge was empty yesterday. Look at it now. How much rain fell? Type the number of millimeters.
Accept: 36 · 36 mm · 36mm · 36 millimeters · 36 millimeter (and the -re spellings)
Why: The number below the top is 30. / The top is three marks above the 30. / Each mark is worth 2, not 1: 32, 34, 36. / So 36 mm of rain fell.
Hard because: the number is produced, not recognised; counting the marks in 1s gives 33.
Type 10 — PP-10 · SR3-011 + MOT3-026 · hard · text entry · drawing table_pp_beach
Stem: Look at the beach weather table. On which day did the most rain fall? Type the day.
Accept: day_accept("Wednesday") — Wednesday · wednesday · Wed · wed · Wed. · on Wednesday · on wednesday (the grader folds case)
Why: Look down the Rain (mm) column: 0, 4, 30, 16, 0. / The biggest number is 30. / Go along that row to the Day column: Wed. / So the most rain fell on Wednesday.
Hard because: two steps — compare every value down one column, then read back along the row — and the day is typed.