Bonjour à tous !

If you view Madame Cécile’s answer in the following link then she states that “ if you have 'this' and 'that' , 'ceci' will always be the first example and 'cela' the second.”

https://progress.lawlessfrench.com/questions/view/query-regarding-ceci-cela-ca#Answer-10450

So, ceci should be the first one “faire les devoirs” and cela, the second one “dormir”

Bonjour !

I think the error is in the example which corresponds to this rule ->

Faire mes devoirs ou dormir, je préfère ceci plutôt que cela.

Doing my homework or sleeping, I prefer this rather than that.

Here, ‘ceci’ should be associated with the former option- Faire mes devoirs and ‘cela’ with the latter idea - Dormir.

Earlier, I had reported via “Report Issue” button but it seems no correction has been made.

I think Diego is correct, ceci should be "the latter". Every other source seems to define ceci /cela in that way. Also, in the example, it's natural to assume that I prefer sleeping to doing homework. Note that dormir and ceci are highlighted in bold to show that they correspond.

I wonder if the example has already been changed - didn't it used to say "the latter" rather than "this"? It doesn't really make sense now, there's no way in English to know what is meant by "this" and "that".

My reasoning is that "ceci" points to the "closest" option (the latter), and "cela" to the furthest option (the former), as in proximity within the phrase.

Agreed with Alan that "this" and "that" don't really make sense for this particular sentence.

Has this been corrected in the lesson? It's quite confusing.

Yes, the lesson is correct now.