Skill: course-build → write-mcqs → write-explanation, design-check-sequence @ b0fa825 · v2 (2 Oct 2026, reviews applied) write-mcqs @ efd8fba · v3 (2 Oct 2026, the re-read's polish) write-mcqs → write-explanation @ efd8fba
Topic 22 — What happens in an earthquake — the PP100's question types, with their exemplars (v3, 2 October 2026)
v3 in one line: the same fifteen types and the same fifty items; the re-read's polish changed six items' options only (PP-16, PP-41, PP-42, PP-43, PP-44, PP-49), the type 10 accept list gains "waves of energy" and "wave's", and L02 gains a quiz item on the crack's width (L02-q3), so the width PP-42's key rests on is taught by an item before the bank. L02's quiz items from q3 on are renumbered by one (v2's L02-qN is v3's L02-q(N+1)) — the references below keep v2's numbers. MCQ keys A 12 · B 13 · C 12 · D 11.
v2 in one line: 50 items, 48 four-option MCQs and 2 typed; fifteen types (the multi-select type and the stand-alone word type are gone); PP-28 asks what an equal result shows; PP-48 asks the ONE thing that must differ; the six claim items carry real distractors and one-clause keys; the three word items became comparisons; a seismograph term item joins the hard tier. MCQ keys A 12 · B 13 · C 12 · D 11.
What this page is. James reads a bank as its question TYPES first (vault: A bank is reviewed as its question types first, one exemplar each). Under the Grade 4 standing brief the bank is built straight away (50 items in content/G4T22_pp100_bank.py); this sheet is the way in. Each type line says what the stem asks, what the four options (or the accept list) are, and prints one exemplar in full. Tags follow depth of reasoning — easy = one fact or a one-step read; medium = the rule applied to a fresh case, a reason picked, or a drawn map, line or table read; hard = two ideas chained, a claim judged by its correct reason, a set answer, or a term produced — and rise with the atom's order: EAR4-045 (the crust) carries easy items, two medium and one hard term item; EAR4-046 (the shaking spreads as waves) runs easy to hard; EAR4-047 (the capstone comparison) carries medium and hard only. Every hard item carries a one-line "hard because" (hb) in the bank file.
Rulings already applied. Four options on every MCQ (four fixed sets: the what-is-under set "rock / soil, all the way down / water, all the way down / empty space"; the where-it-starts set; the how-it-got-there set "as waves through the crust / the ground slid there / the air carried it / a crack ran all the way there"; the which-protects-better set "<design> / <design> / both the same / you cannot tell from this table", whose "you cannot tell" is the REAL key on the unfair-test table, never padding; the equal-result table (PP-28) asks instead what the test shows, with "This test shows no difference between them" as its key — v2, after both blind readers found "both the same" and "you cannot tell" equally honest); no option bundles a verdict with its reason (every claim is recast as "X is wrong … What is the correct reason?" with four single-statement reasons); every stem is a positive question of at most two sentences unless tagged hard (S23); an item map, trace or table carries no verdict chip and its blind text is data (distances in miles; heights above the middle line; the table's cells); "crust" is recalled by MCQ among its sisters (RECALL_BY_MCQ, the brief's call for this topic); the typed key is "waves" (Topic 8's word, inside L02's lexicon sentence, spellable, with child spellings in the accept list); no multi-select (v2: the dresser item asks the ONE thing that must differ, after the readers found a third fair option); every item names ONE atom (v2: the three stand-alone criterion / defense word items left the bank — those words are Grade 3's and Topic 11's atoms); US spelling; units as words in prose, numerals on drawings. MCQ keys A 12 · B 13 · C 12 · D 11.
The bar list (real things a generated item must never use): any layer of Earth by name other than the crust (mantle, core: grade 6-8's); "plate", "fault", "epicenter", "seismic", "magnitude", "Richter" (not taught; "where the rock slipped" is the plain phrase); any real named earthquake, any death, injury, collapsed home or person in danger (James: nothing frightening — damage is a cracked wall, a fallen bookshelf, a narrow crack across a road); "tsunami"; a wave word Topic 8 did not coin ("crest", "frequency"); any lesson scene (the road cut, Kyla's kitchen and her cousin's call, the class shaking table with the two towers of blocks and the braces, the intro's library with its swinging lamps); any quiz scene (the Texas pipe, the ship's camera, the Oregon gardener, the Michigan lake, Keegan's Kansas yard, the Iowa well, the Utah town, the Oregon parking-lot crack, towns R S T V, lines J K, the kitchen cabinet and its cups, wall designs M N, chimney designs P Q, the bookshelf and its strap, the toy bridges, the sandbags; the practice's Town F and G, designs X and Y, the plant stand, the cork, the subway, the store's cans); a claim-maker from another topic's row (only Keegan, Kendra and Kyla); "biggest / smallest" for a distance or count (farthest, most).
The fifteen types (v2; the capstone's comparison needs the table, the described-result, the fair-test and the claim forms, so the count is what it is)
| Type | Items | Atom | Tags | Form | The stem asks… | The options / the accept | Exemplar scene |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 4 | 045 | easy | MCQ, the what-is-under set | what is under a named place once the soil (or ice, or water) ends | rock / soil all the way down / water all the way down / empty space | a Colorado mine tunnel; a Minnesota basement; Antarctica's ice; a Missouri river bottom |
| 2 | 4 | 045 | easy | MCQ | which of four things in one scene is part of Earth's crust | one rock thing and three things that sit on it (water, air, snow, fog, seaweed, bats) | a Florida parking lot; a Wyoming mountain; a Maine cliff; a Kentucky cave |
| 3 | 5 | 045 | easy, medium | MCQ | how thick, how far down, which is thickest; whether a depth is still inside the crust | four depths / four thicknesses / four statements | a fence post hole in Illinois; a Texas drill two miles down; a Georgia hill and an Arizona hill |
| 4 | 2 | 046 | easy | MCQ, the where-it-starts set | where an earthquake starts | where rock deep in the crust suddenly slips / wind / deepest soil / deepest sea | Tennessee |
| 5 | 3 | 046 | easy, medium | MCQ, the how-it-got-there set | how the shaking reached a far place; whether a slip under the sea can reach the coast | as waves through the crust / the ground slid / the air carried it / a crack ran there | Montana; an Arkansas diner; the Pacific Ocean |
| 6 | 3 | 046 | medium | MCQ, drawn map | on a map with the star where the rock slipped, which town shakes harder or more gently | Town / Town / both the same / the town with more houses | towns W X; Y Z; L M |
| 7 | 2 | 046 | medium, hard | MCQ, drawn traces (Topic 8's wave panel, drawn as an ink line) | which seismograph line was drawn nearer / farthest from the slip | the lines / same distance / cannot tell | lines N P; lines Q R S (three, the hard form) |
| 8 | 4 | 046 | medium | MCQ | the correct reason the far town shakes gently; what the ground at a farm has done; which of two traces means harder shaking; what cracked a wall with no crack in the ground | four single statements | a town eighty miles out; an Idaho farm; Ohio and Indiana; a South Carolina shop |
| 9 | 3 | 047 | medium | MCQ, drawn results table | which design protects better (one clear winner; an unfair test → cannot tell); what an equal result shows (no difference) | Design / Design / both the same / you cannot tell from this table; for the equal result: J protects better / K protects better / no difference / the test was unfair | a model silo; a model chimney; a model barn |
| 10 | 2 | 046 | hard | typed | what carried the shaking through the crust | waves, wave, a wave, the waves, the wave, as waves, as a wave, shaking waves, energy waves, waves of energy, wave's, waves through the crust, wavs, wavez, waives, wavse, waevs | a slip under the sea floor; a seismograph's tall line |
| 11 | 4 | 047 | medium | MCQ | which of two DESCRIBED results protects better (no table) | two designs / both the same / you cannot tell | garden sheds; lamp posts E F; water tanks; a mirror on a wide stand or a hook |
| 12 | 4 | 047 | medium, hard | MCQ, the fair test | which test compares two defenses fairly; a test with unequal times → cannot tell; the ONE thing that must differ; what would tell engineers | four tests / two designs + both + cannot tell / the shaking, the time, the design, the floor / four methods | a fish tank stand; sign posts; a tall dresser; rubber pads against steel braces |
| 13 | 2 | 045, 046 | hard | MCQ keyed on the term | the shell named from its whole definition; the machine named from what it does | the soil / lava / the crust / sand; a thermometer / a seismograph / a stopwatch / a ruler | the definition; a museum machine in Vermont |
| 14 | 5 | 046 / 047 | hard | MCQ | a named child's claim is wrong: what is the correct reason (the catalogued beliefs: the ground travels; the ground swallows things; looks tell; a defense stops the shaking; an unfair test) | four one-clause reasons; three real distractors that half-accept the belief, with varied verbs so the key is not the odd one out; the key never the longest | Keegan's sliding ballpark; Kendra's bus-swallowing hole; Kyla's heavier-looking stand; Keegan's rubber pads; Kendra's two stands |
| 15 | 3 | 047 | hard | MCQ | two steps: two kinds of damage weighed and the better design judged although it too was damaged; a second test changing the result; where the damage comes from deciding what a defense guards against | A / B / both the same / cannot tell; four statements | model schools; model lighthouses; a town hall far from any crack |
Hard because — type 10: the word is produced, not picked. Type 12's dresser: the fair-test rule turned round (the ONE thing that differs). Type 13: the term is recalled from its whole definition or from what the machine does, with no clue word in the stem. Type 14: each claim is judged by its correct reason, which needs the lesson's idea held against the belief (the wave idea against sliding ground; a hand-wide crack against a swallowing hole; Topic 12's only-the-test rule against a guess; what a defense does against what nobody can do; the fair-test rule against a result that looks clear) — and every distractor half-accepts the belief, so the key is not the odd one out. Type 15: two steps or two ideas chained. Type 7's three-line item: an order, not a pair.
One exemplar per type, in full
Type 1 (easy, EAR4-045). Miners in Colorado dig a tunnel a mile under a mountain. What are the tunnel's walls made of? — rock / soil, all the way down / water, all the way down / empty space. Why: The ground is the top of Earth's hard rocky outer shell, the crust. A mile down, the miners are inside that shell. So the tunnel's walls are rock. (nearest lesson-side instance: L01-q2, the Texas pipe under a street, three options — here the digger is a mile down and the set is four)
Type 2 (easy, EAR4-045). Which of these is part of Earth's crust? — the rock under a parking lot in Florida / the air above a farm / the water in a swimming pool / the clouds over a city. (nearest: L01-q5 and q6, yes / no on a lake's rock and the ocean's water — here four things in one scene, one of them rock)
Type 3 (medium, EAR4-045). A drill in Texas goes down two miles and brings up rock from the bottom. Which of these is true about the rock? — It is from below the crust. / It is soil pressed hard. / It is melted rock. / It is part of the crust. (nearest: L01-q8, the seven-mile hole against the twenty-mile crust, yes / no — here the depth is new and the statement is picked among four)
Type 4 (easy, EAR4-046). In which place does an earthquake start? — where rock deep in the crust suddenly slips / where the wind blows hardest / where the soil is deepest / where the sea is deepest. (nearest: L02-q3, the same fact with three options; the stem is reworded so S28 does not read it as the same item)
Type 5 (easy, EAR4-046). Rock deep in the crust slips under Montana, and a town thirty miles away shakes. How did the shaking get to the town? — as waves through the crust / the ground slid there / the air carried it / a crack ran all the way there. (nearest: L02-q4, the Utah town — here the fixed set is four and the crack-ran-there belief is a distractor)
Type 6 (medium, EAR4-046, drawn). On this map, the star is where the rock slipped. Which town shakes harder? — Town W / Town X / both the same / neither town shakes. (figure pp_map_wx: Town X twenty-five miles from the star, Town W ninety; blind text is the two distances; nearest: L02-q6, towns R and S, two options)
Type 7 (hard, EAR4-046, drawn). Three seismographs drew the same earthquake's shaking as lines Q, R and S. Which line was drawn farthest from where the rock slipped? — line Q / line R / line S / all three were the same distance. Hard because: three lines are put in order of distance, not two compared. (figure pp_trace_qr: tops 10, 30 and 18 above the middle line; nearest: L02-q8, lines J and K)
Type 8 (medium, EAR4-046). After an earthquake in South Carolina, a shop's wall has a long crack, and there is no crack in the ground anywhere near the shop. What cracked the wall? — a crack in the ground under it / the wind / water in the soil / the shaking of the ground under it. (nearest: L03-q10, Kendra's TRUE claim that a wall can crack with no crack in the ground near it — here the cause is picked among four)
Type 9 (medium, EAR4-047, drawn). Here are the results for two model-barn designs on a shaking table. Which design protects better? — Design U / Design V / both the same / you cannot tell from this table. (figure pp_table_unfair: Design U gentle shaking, Design V hard shaking; the "cannot tell" option is the genuine key, allowed by James's Topic 2 ruling; nearest: L03-q6, Kyla's unfair test, yes / no) The equal-result form (PP-28): Here are the results for two model-chimney designs on a shaking table, and no bricks fell from either design. What does this test show? — Design J protects better. / Design K protects better. / This test shows no difference between them. / The test was unfair.
Type 10 (hard, EAR4-046, typed). Rock slips under the sea floor, and the ground on the coast shakes a minute later. Type the name for what carried the shaking through the crust to the coast. — accept: waves, wave, a wave, the waves, the wave, as waves, as a wave, shaking waves, energy waves, waves of energy, wave's, waves through the crust, wavs, wavez, waives, wavse, waevs. Hard because: the word is produced from a fresh scene. (nearest: PR-14, the practice's typed "waves"; L02-q12, the sea-floor slip as yes / no)
Type 11 (medium, EAR4-047). Two model water-tank designs get the same shaking test for ten seconds: Tank A tips over, and Tank B sways and stays up. Which design protects better? — Tank A / Tank B / both the same / you cannot tell. (nearest: L03-q3, the cabinets, three options)
Type 12 (medium, EAR4-047). A class tests two ways of keeping a fish tank stand from tipping: rubber feet, or bolts into the floor. Which test lets them compare the two fairly? — a gentle shake for the rubber feet and a hard one for the bolts / the same shaking, for the same time, for both / a long shake for one and a short shake for the other / shaking only the one that looks weaker. (nearest: L03-q6, the two model bridges, yes / no) The turned-round form (PP-48, hard): A class will compare two designs for keeping a tall dresser from tipping: a strap to the wall, or a heavy base. They test each design on a shaking table. Which ONE thing should be different in the two tests? — the shaking / the time / the design being tested / the floor the dresser stands on.
Type 13 (hard, EAR4-045). Earth has a hard rocky outer shell about twenty miles thick under the land, and the ground is the top of it. What is this shell called? — the soil / lava / the crust / sand. Hard because: the term is recalled from its whole definition among three sisters. (nearest: L01-q4 and PR-14, the term among three) The second term (EAR4-046): In a science museum in Vermont, a machine draws the shaking of the ground as a line on a strip of paper. What is the machine called? — a thermometer / a seismograph / a stopwatch / a ruler.
Type 14 (hard, EAR4-047). Keegan is wrong to say rubber pads under a building stop the earthquake. What is the correct reason? — Nobody can stop the ground shaking. / Rubber pads stop the shaking only in a short earthquake. / The pads stop the shaking everywhere in town, not only under the building. / The pads stop the earthquake only if the building is small. Hard because: what a defense does is held against what nobody can do, and every distractor keeps the belief that pads can stop shaking (v3: the third option is plainly false; v2's "under the building, not around it" was close to what pads really do). (nearest: L03-q9, Keegan's claim as bare yes / no)
Type 15 (hard, EAR4-047). Two model schools get the same shaking test for ten seconds. School A's roof slides off. School B's roof stays on, and one window cracks. Which design protects better? — School A / School B / both the same / you cannot tell from this test. Hard because: two kinds of damage are weighed against each other, then the better design is judged although it too was damaged. (nearest: L03-q3, the cabinets, one step)
Design-move inventory (move · scene kind · nearest earlier item)
The bank's 50 moves against the lesson side (L01 10 quiz items, L02 12, L03 11, 3 attached, 3 summary, 14 practice; the lessons' own cases: the road cut, the street / field / sea slice, the shell, the depth table (L01); Kyla's kitchen, her cousin's town, the pond recall, the slip, the arcs and rings, the near / far map, the two traces, the crack (L02); the shaking table, the two towers, the results table, the braces and pads photos, the bookshelf (L03); the intro's library):
- Type 1 (4): what is under, once the top layer ends — a mine tunnel (rock all round), a basement (soil ends), Antarctica (ice ends), a river bottom (soil washed off). Nearest: L01-q2 (a pipe under a street), q3 (the sea floor), q4 (a gardener's hole), the L01 attached (an Iowa well), PR-4 (a subway tunnel). Same move by design (the fact); every scene is a new kind of digging or a new top layer (ice; washed-off soil are new).
- Type 2 (4): which thing in a scene is part of the crust — four scenes, each one rock thing among three things that sit on it. Nearest: L01-q5 / q6 and PR-5 (yes / no on one thing). The four-in-one-scene form is the bank's.
- Type 3 (5): depth and thickness — which is thickest (new), how thick (the taught number), a fence post hole (how much farther: new), a two-mile drill (still inside: the L01-q8 move on a new depth), two hills (soil or bare, both on rock: new). Nearest: L01-q7 (thicker), q8 (the seven-mile hole).
- Type 4 (2): where it starts — the bare fact; Tennessee. Nearest: L02-q3. Same fact by design; one stem reworded.
- Type 5 (3): how the shaking got there — Montana, an Arkansas diner, a slip under the Pacific (the L02-q12 move with a four-way set). Nearest: L02-q4 (Utah), q12 (the sea floor), PR-7.
- Type 6 (3): read a map — three fresh town pairs; the third asks where the dishes rattle hardest (the effect, not the word "shakes"). Nearest: L02-q6 / q7, PR-6. Same move by design (the drawn fluency run); every map is a fresh pair of towns and distances.
- Type 7 (2): read the traces — N and P (nearer), Q R S (farthest of three: new). Nearest: L02-q8.
- Type 8 (4): the reason or the effect — the far town's reason (L02-q5's move, a fresh pair of distances), the Idaho farm's ground (new: what the ground did), Ohio and Indiana (two traces in words, new), the South Carolina wall (L03-q10's claim as a cause item). Nearest: L02-q5, q9, L03-q10.
- Type 9 (3): read a results table — a clear winner (silos G over H), an equal result asked as what-the-test-shows (J = K: new), an unfair test (U gentle, V hard: new). Nearest: L03-q4 / q5, PR-9 (clear winners), L03-q6 (the unfair test as yes / no).
- Type 10 (2): the word typed — two fresh scenes (v2: the generic lexicon-sentence stem was cut as the third item on one answer). Nearest: PR-15 (the practice's typed waves).
- Type 11 (4): the comparison in words — sheds, lamp posts E F, water tanks, a mirror on a wide stand or a hook (described results: L03-q3's move on new things). Nearest: L03-q3, the L03 attached (model houses), SUMMARY-Q3 (fences).
- Type 12 (4): the fair test — the fish tank stand (which test is fair), sign posts shaken for different times (cannot tell: new), the dresser (the ONE thing that differs: new form), engineers' pads against braces (a real-world case). Nearest: L03-q6 (the bridges), q11, PR-10.
- Type 13 (2): the term from its definition — the crust among four sisters; the seismograph among four instruments (new). Nearest: L01-q4, L02-q8, PR-13, PR-14.
- Type 14 (5): claims by their correct reason — Keegan's sliding ballpark (L02-q9's belief), Kendra's bus-swallowing hole (L02-q11's belief), Kyla's heavier-looking stand (L03-q8's belief), Keegan's rubber pads (L03-q9's belief), Kendra's two stands (L03-q6's belief as a claim). Same beliefs by design (the misconception rows ask for the belief in a lesson item AND a bank item); every bank form is the reason form on a fresh scene.
- Type 15 (3): two steps — model schools, model lighthouses (a second test), the town hall far from any crack. Nearest: none on the lesson side chains two ideas.
⟂ draw constraints (an item that prints another's answer; near-duplicate pairs)
- Type 4's two where-it-starts items ⟂ each other (one fact) — draw one.
- Type 5's three how-it-got-there items ⟂ type 10's two typed items: "as waves through the crust" printed as an option is the typed answer; PP-41's old option D printed it too and is gone (v2). Draw at most one type 5 item in a test that carries a type 10 item, and never a type 5 item BEFORE a type 10 item. PR-15 (the practice's typed waves) sits under the same rule.
- PP-36 (the crust from its definition) prints "about twenty miles thick" ⟂ PP-10 (how thick) and PP-11 (the fence-post hole, about twenty more miles) — one of the three per test. PP-22's key ("the waves get weaker as they spread out") states the rule PP-18, 19, 20 and 21 use ⟂ draw PP-22 after them or not with them; PP-24's options state tall line = harder ⟂ PP-21, PP-40 and PR-8 — draw the words item or a drawn item, not both.
- Type 13 (the crust from its definition) ⟂ every type 1, 2 and 3 item (each prints "crust" in its stem or key) — the term item is drawn only where the test carries none of them before it; type 3's "About how thick is the crust under the land?" (about twenty miles) ⟂ type 13's stem (which states twenty miles) and ⟂ the fence-post item's key (about twenty more miles).
- Type 9's unfair-test table ("you cannot tell") ⟂ type 12's four fair-test items (the fish tank, the sign posts, the dresser, the engineers) and ⟂ type 14's Kendra-two-stands item: all state the fair-test rule. Draw at most two of the six per test.
- Type 8's South Carolina wall ⟂ type 15's town hall item (the damage-comes-from-the-shaking idea is the key of both). Draw one.
- Type 14's rubber-pads item ⟂ type 12's engineers item (braces and pads named as defenses). Draw one of the pads items.
- Type 7's two trace items ⟂ type 8's Ohio-and-Indiana item (the tall-line convention is stated in that item's options). Draw the words item or a drawn item, not both.
- Near-duplicate pairs: the three type 6 maps are one move — draw one per test; type 9's silos and type 11's four described results are one move (less damage wins) — draw two of the five at most; type 1's four items are one move — draw two at most.