Question: Passage: The Royal College of Music commissioned an official portrait of the composer from Sir Gerald Kelly (1952) which hangs in the college. The Manchester Art Gallery has a bronze sculpture of Vaughan Williams by Epstein (1952) and the National Portrait Gallery (NPG) has drawings by Joyce Finzi (1947) and Juliet Pannett (1957 and 1958); versions of a bronze head of the composer by David McFall (1956) are in the NPG and at the entrance to the Music reading room of the British Library. There is a statue of Vaughan Williams in Dorking, and a bust in Chelsea Embankment Gardens, near his old house in Cheyne Walk.In 1994 a group of enthusiasts founded the Ralph Vaughan Williams Society, with the composer's widow as its president and Roy Douglas and Michael Kennedy as vice presidents. The society, a registered charity, has sponsored and encouraged performances of the composer's works including complete symphony cycles and a Vaughan Williams opera festival. The society has promoted premieres of neglected works, and has its own record label, Albion Records.Composers of the generation after Vaughan Williams reacted against his style, which became unfashionable in influential musical circles in the 1960s; diatonic and melodic music such as his was neglected in favour of atonal and other modernist compositions. In the 21st century this neglect has been reversed. In the fiftieth anniversary year of his death two contrasting documentary films were released: Tony Palmer's O Thou Transcendent: The Life of Vaughan Williams and John Bridcut's The Passions of Vaughan Williams. British audiences were prompted to reappraise the composer. The popularity of his most accessible works, particularly the Tallis Fantasia and The Lark Ascending increased, but a wide public also became aware of what a reviewer of Bridcut's film called "a genius driven by emotion". Among the 21st-century musicians who have acknowledged Vaughan Williams's influence on their development are John Adams, PJ Harvey, Sir Peter Maxwell Davies, Anthony Payne, Wayne Shorter, Neil Tennant and Mark-Anthony Turnage.The Clements Park development, located in Warley, Brentwood, Essex, has roads taking their names after the composer and his works, the most obvious being the main road "Vaughan Williams Way" which runs through the development. Vaughan Williams lectured in Brentwood on folk music, and collected 140 songs from villages in the region.

Passage: In June 1911 Holst and his Morley College students gave the first performance since the seventeenth century of Purcell's The Fairy-Queen. The full score had been lost soon after Purcell's death in 1695, and had only recently been found. Twenty-eight Morley students copied out the complete vocal and orchestral parts. There were 1,500 pages of music and it took the students almost eighteen months to copy them out in their spare time. A concert performance of the work was given at The Old Vic, preceded by an introductory talk by Vaughan Williams. The Times praised Holst and his forces for "a most interesting and artistic performance of this very important work".After this success, Holst was disappointed the following year by the lukewarm reception of his choral work The Cloud Messenger. He again went travelling, accepting an invitation from H. Balfour Gardiner to join him and the brothers Clifford and Arnold Bax in Spain. During this holiday Clifford Bax introduced Holst to astrology, an interest that later inspired his suite The Planets. Holst cast his friends' horoscopes for the rest of his life and referred to astrology as his "pet vice".In 1913, St Paul's Girls' School opened a new music wing, and Holst composed St Paul's Suite for the occasion. The new building contained a sound-proof room, handsomely equipped, where he could work undisturbed. Holst and his family moved to a house in Brook Green, very close to the school. For the previous six years they had lived in a pretty house overlooking the Thames at Barnes, but the river air, frequently foggy, affected his breathing. For use at weekends and during school holidays, Holst and his wife bought a cottage in Thaxted, Essex, surrounded by mediaeval buildings and ample rambling opportunities. In 1917 they moved to a house in the centre of the town, where they stayed until 1925.

Passage: Vaughan Williams conducted a handful of recordings for gramophone and radio. His studio recordings are the overture to The Wasps, and the ballet Old King Cole (both made in 1925), Dona Nobis Pacem (1936), and the Fourth Symphony (1937). Live concert tapings include the Serenade to Music, and the Fifth Symphony, recorded in 1951 and 1952, respectively. There is a recording of Vaughan Williams conducting the St Matthew Passion with his Leith Hill Festival forces. In the early days of LP in the 1950s Vaughan Williams was better represented in the record catalogues than most British composers. The Record Guide (1955) contained nine pages of listings of his music on disc, compared with five for Walton, and four apiece for Elgar and Britten.All the composer's major works and many of the minor ones have been recorded. There have been numerous complete LP and CD sets of the nine symphonies, beginning with Boult's Decca cycle of the 1950s, most of which was recorded in the composer's presence. Although rarely staged, the operas have fared well on disc. The earliest recording of a Vaughan Williams opera was Hugh the Drover, in an abridged version conducted by Sargent in 1924. Since the 1960s there have been stereophonic recordings of Hugh the Drover, Sir John in Love, Riders to the Sea, The Poisoned Kiss, and The Pilgrim's Progress. Most of the orchestral recordings have been by British orchestras and conductors, but notable non-British conductors who have made recordings of Vaughan Williams's works include Herbert von Karajan, Leonard Bernstein, Leopold Stokowski, and, most frequently, André Previn, who conducted the London Symphony Orchestra in the first complete stereo cycle of the symphonies, recorded between 1967 and 1972. Among the British conductors most closely associated with Vaughan Williams's music on disc and in concert in the generations after Boult, Sargent and Barbirolli are Vernon Handley, Richard Hickox, Sir Mark Elder and Sir Andrew Davis. Record companies with extensive lists of Vaughan Williams recordings include EMI, Decca, Chandos, Hyperion and Naxos.

Instruction: In this task, you're given passages that contain mentions of names of people, places, or things. Some of these mentions refer to the same person, place, or thing. Your job is to write questions that evaluate one's understanding of such references. Good questions are expected to link pronouns (she, her, him, his, their, etc.) or other mentions to people, places, or things to which they may refer. Do not ask questions that can be answered correctly without understanding the paragraph or having multiple answers. Avoid questions that do not link phrases referring to the same entity. For each of your questions, the answer should be one or more phrases in the paragraph, and it should be unambiguous.


Question:
Passage: One evening, after getting drunk at a bar, Mitch and Dave urinate in a park's fountain, and simultaneously wish that they had each other's lives.
The next morning, Mitch and Dave realize they have switched bodies. Mitch remembers the wish they made the night before and they drive back to the park, planning to urinate again in the fountain and wish for their original lives back, but find the fountain has been removed for restorations. Forced to wait a few days until the parks department can locate the fountain, Mitch and Dave agree to pretend to be each other for the day. When Mitch arrives at Dave's law firm office, he befriends Dave's attractive assistant, Sabrina McKay.  However, Mitch's lack of professionalism and legal knowledge cause a big merger to fall through. Meanwhile, Dave arrives at Mitch's film shoot to discover that it is a lorno (light porno).
Tired of pretending to be Mitch, Dave has them go back to his house to tell his wife Jamie the truth, but Jamie does not believe him. Dave gives Mitch advice on how to behave professionally and Mitch sets Dave up on a date with Sabrina, who Mitch has had a crush on.
After speaking with his father, Mitch rededicates himself to doing everything Dave's life demands, from taking care of the kids and buying groceries to making decisions at the firm. On the night of her ballet recital, Cara, Dave's eldest child, is about to be pushed by another girl who has a habit of bullying her, but takes Mitch's advice and throws her to the floor, to which Mitch foul-mouthedly cheers. Cara tells Mitch that she loves him and Mitch says the same thing, but feels guilty for doing so immediately after. That night, Mitch and Jamie begin to have sex with each other, but Mitch angrily finds that his guilt will not allow him to become erect, and he admits that he is not cut out for the responsibilities of an adult. Jamie comforts him, and he discreetly rests his head on her breasts.

Passage: A childhood accident leaves Leo mute and his devout Amish mother refuses surgery. As an adult in 2035, he works as a bartender at a Berlin strip club owned by Maksim and dates cocktail waitress Naadirah. She confides in her friend Luba that she has not told Leo about her past or her desperate need for money.
After Stuart, a rowdy customer, sexually harasses Naadirah, Leo assaults him. Naadirah talks Leo down by telling him that she needs to keep her job.
Naadirah shows up at Leo's apartment and attempts to tell him about something important. Leo shows her an elaborate bed he has been carving as a present for her. Naadirah is overcome with emotion and they have sex. Elsewhere, Maksim's mobsters meet two American surgeons, Cactus Bill and Duck, who run a black-market clinic. Bill desperately wants to leave Berlin and has pressed Maksim to provide forged documents for him and his young daughter, Josie. Duck, however, enjoys living in Berlin and runs a side business where he installs implants and performs cybernetic surgery.
Stuart returns to the strip club and taunts Leo, leading to a fight and Maksim firing Leo. When he's unable to contact Naadirah, Leo asks Luba for help, but Luba refuses. An anonymous text message leads Leo to a black-market bazaar run by Stuart. Bill and Josie are there, and Bill takes Josie away as Stuart confronts Leo. Suddenly remembering that Naadirah wrote an address on his notepad a while back, Leo leaves the bazaar after using charcoal to read the imprint.
Naadirah's address leads Leo to Oswald. When Leo expresses interest in a picture of Naadirah, Oswald assumes Leo works for Maksim's underling Nicky Simsek, who is skimming money from Maksim's prostitutes. Leo meets with Simsek, who is babysitting Josie. Leo befriends Josie and leaves the money from Oswald and a note incriminating Simsek in front of Maksim's henchmen.

Passage: Young Max Skinner, whose parents have died in an accident, spends his childhood summer holidays learning to appreciate the finer things in life at his Uncle Henry's vineyard estate in Provence in southeastern France. Some 25 years later, Max is an unethical, successful, and hard-working London-based bond trader with a sense of humour.
Following his uncle's death, Max is the sole beneficiary of the French property. He travels to Provence to prepare a quick sale. Shortly after arriving, by driving while fumbling with a cell phone, he unknowingly causes a local café owner, Fanny Chenal, to crash her bicycle. Subsequently, he discovers that his latest City financial stunt has caused real trouble for the owners of the trading company he works for, and the CEO orders him to return to London as soon as possible.
To assist in his planned sale of the property, Max hurriedly snaps some photos and in the process falls into an empty swimming pool. He is unable to escape until Fanny, driving by and spotting his rental car, turns on the water supply in retaliation. This delay causes Max to miss his flight and, having failed to report to the directors in person, he is suspended from work and trading activities for one week.
On Henry's estate, Max must deal with a gruff, dedicated winemaker, Francis Duflot, who fears being separated from his precious vines. Duflot pays a vineyard inspector to tell Max that the soil is bad and the vines worthless.

Instruction: In this task, you're given passages that contain mentions of names of people, places, or things. Some of these mentions refer to the same person, place, or thing. Your job is to write questions that evaluate one's understanding of such references. Good questions are expected to link pronouns (she, her, him, his, their, etc.) or other mentions to people, places, or things to which they may refer. Do not ask questions that can be answered correctly without understanding the paragraph or having multiple answers. Avoid questions that do not link phrases referring to the same entity. For each of your questions, the answer should be one or more phrases in the paragraph, and it should be unambiguous.


Question: Passage: "Déjà Vu" debuted to mixed and positive reviews among critics. Mike Joseph of the international webzine PopMatters' believed that it was "fantastic to hear Beyoncé singing her lungs out over a full-bodied groove featuring live instruments". Spence D. of IGN Music, a multimedia news and reviews website, complimented Jerkins' bass-laden groove, writing that it brought the track to perfection. Describing "Déjà Vu" as a magnificent song, Caroline Sullivan of The Guardian complimented Beyoncé and Jay-Z collaboration calling it "feverish as pre-watershed pop gets". She added that even though when Jay-Z is not physically present, he manages to bring out something formidable in Beyoncé that evokes "the young, feral Tina Turner". Bernard Zuel The Sydney Morning Herald praised the assertiveness with which Beyoncé delivers her lines and considered buying "Déjà Vu" as worthwhile.Several other music critics have compared "Déjà Vu" to Beyoncé's 2003 single, "Crazy in Love", the lead single of her debut album. According to Gail Mitchell of Billboard magazine, the song is viewed by many as a sequel to "Crazy in Love". Jason King of the Vibe magazine deemed the song as "cloned from the DNA of the raucous 'Crazy in Love'" while Thomas Inskeep of Stylus Magazine referred to it as "'Crazy in Love' lite". Some reviewers, however, were negative to the parallels drawn between the two songs. Andy Kellman of AllMusic, an online music database, wrote that "['Déjà Vu'] "had the audacity to not be as monstrous as 'Crazy in Love'", referring to the commercial success the latter experienced in 2003. The internet-based publication Pitchfork's writer Ryan Dombal claimed that "this time [Beyoncé] out-bolds the beat".Sasha Frere-Jones of The New Yorker deemed the lyrics as a "perplexing view of memory", while Chris Richards of The Washington Post characterized Beyoncé as a "love-dazed girlfriend" in the song. Jody Rosen of the Entertainment Weekly referred to "Déjà Vu" as an "oddly flat" choice as a lead single. Jaime Gill of Yahoo! Music regarded "Déjà Vu" as a good choice for a single but concluded that it does lack "the kind of killer chorus" to suggest that Beyoncé would take one further step "to outright global domination". On the other hand, Jon Pareles of The New York Times wrote that Jay-Z shows up "as calmly boastful as ever" in the song but he only makes Beyoncé's "sound more insecure". Kelefa Sanneh of the same publication noted that "the refrain doesn't give Beyoncé a chance really to show off" and further described the song as a "fair-to-middling single from a singer who is the opposite of desperate".

Passage: "Déjà Vu" is a contemporary R&B song, performed in a moderate hip hop groove. It is also influenced by late-1970s funk music, and it contains elements of soul music as well as dance-pop music. According to the sheet music published at Musicnotes.com by EMI Music Publishing, the song is composed in the key of G minor with a time signature in common time, and a moderate groove of 106 beats per minute. Beyoncé's vocals range from the note of D♯4 to F5. The music is largely based on live instrumentation, including a bass guitar, conga, hi-hat, and horns. A non-live instrument, the Roland TR-808 drum machine, provides the song's heavy and energetic disco beat. Spence D. of IGN Music commented that Beyoncé's vocals on the song are "silky smooth" and that her vocal range leans toward the high end, hence contrasting to the song's low-end construction. Mike Joseph of PopMatters noted that "Déjà Vu" is reminiscent of Michael Jackson's "Off the Wall" (1980).
The title refers to the déjà vu phenomenon. The lyrics to "Déjà Vu" follow the verse–pre-chorus–chorus pattern, and feature two rap verses. It is hook-laden, similar in this respect to "Crazy in Love". The lyrics detail a woman being constantly reminded of a past lover, shown in the lines, "Is it because I'm missing you that I'm having déjà vu?" As the song opens, Beyoncé introduces the bass, hi-hat and Roland TR-808 by name. The sounds of the instruments blend as they are being mentioned one after the other; the horns are only audible in the pre-chorus and hook sections, and a short section in the second rap. The bass guitar, which is the first instrument to enter, slides into the main two-bar ostinato. Following the repeated bass slides, the hi-hat and the Roland TR-808 begin playing.After that Beyoncé mentions Jay-Z, the bass glides up for a vibrato-rich fill, giving way to the first rap. Backgrounded with a repeating groove, Beyoncé starts the first verse. The pre-chorus follows, for which the bass changes to a more melodic tone "to play something more singing", in the words of Jon Jon Webb, the bass player on the track. The melody returns to the main groove during the repeated hook. This pattern repeats and leads to the second rap verse. The third pre-chorus "comes from Jerkins' idea to have the part changes on top, with Webb's main groove on the bottom". It is followed by the main pre-chorus, then the hook is repeated four times. After that, the singing stops and the instruments fill in the space of the pre-chorus. The hi-hat and Roland TR-808 also stop; the song ends with the plucked bass and blasts of horns from the very first line of the chorus.

Passage: The music video for "Déjà Vu" was filmed by British director Sophie Muller in New Orleans, Louisiana on June 21, 2006, with parts of the video shot at the Maple Leaf Bar and the Oak Alley Plantation in Carrollton, Louisiana and Vacherie, Louisiana respectively. The footage features couture-inspired outfits, vigorous footwork and sexually-themed routines. The video simultaneously premiered on July 12, 2006 on MTV's show Total Request Live (TRL), and Overdrive, MTV's broadband video channel. It reached the top spot on the TRL, Yahoo!, and MTV countdowns. The "Deja Vu" video topped the UK TV airplay chart in late July 2006.
The video begins with showing Beyoncé against a green wall and Jay-Z sitting on a chair inside a dark room. Beyoncé and Jay-Z then start to simultaneously play imaginary instruments, mimicking the song's tune. Scenes of Beyoncé are then shown in several different rooms wearing different outfits. As the chorus begins, she is shown running around and dancing out in a large sugarcane field. At the end of the chorus, she dances in a red dress in front of a pond and in a large red dress out in front of a mansion. When Jay-Z's verse begins, the two are shown alone inside a room, Beyoncé is now barefoot and bare-legged, she dances seductively around Jay-Z, and leads to the controversial oral sex scene. Beyoncé is then shown wearing a green skirt and bedazzled bra while dancing around in sand. As the song progresses, she is shown dancing alone in a dark forest wearing a sparkling black dress as fireflies circle around her head. The song ends with Beyoncé leaning back in a pose as fireflies race away.

Instruction: In this task, you're given passages that contain mentions of names of people, places, or things. Some of these mentions refer to the same person, place, or thing. Your job is to write questions that evaluate one's understanding of such references. Good questions are expected to link pronouns (she, her, him, his, their, etc.) or other mentions to people, places, or things to which they may refer. Do not ask questions that can be answered correctly without understanding the paragraph or having multiple answers. Avoid questions that do not link phrases referring to the same entity. For each of your questions, the answer should be one or more phrases in the paragraph, and it should be unambiguous.


Question:
Passage: In a music store, a woman orders a player piano as a surprise birthday gift for her husband. She tells the manager her address — 1127 Walnut Avenue — and he hires the Laurel and Hardy Transfer Company to deliver the piano in their freight wagon.
The duo soon learn from a postman that the home is at the top of a very long stairway. Their attempts to carry the piano up the stairs result in it rolling and crashing into the street below several times, twice with Ollie in tow. During their first attempt, they encounter a lady with a baby carriage trying to go down the steps; in trying to let her pass, they knock the piano back down the stairs. After the lady laughs at them, Stan kicks her in her backside, causing her to punch him back and hit Ollie over the head with a milk bottle. Stan and Ollie then heft the piano back up the stairs. The angry lady tells a policeman on the corner, who kicks Ollie twice and hits Stan with his truncheon after the latter suggests the officer is "bounding over his steps" (i.e. "overstepping his bounds"). Meanwhile, the piano has rolled down the steps again.
The two doggedly persist in carrying the piano up the stairs for a third time. Halfway up, they encounter the short-tempered and pompous Professor Theodore von Schwartzenhoffen, M.D., A.D., D.D.S., F.L.D., F-F-F-and-F. He impatiently tells them to take the piano out of his way; he should like to pass. Ollie very reasonably and sensibly suggests he walk around, which sets off the Professor in a fit of Teutonic rage. He screams at Stan and Ollie to get the piano out of his way, and Stan knocks the Professor's top hat down the stairs and into the street, where it is crushed by a passing vehicle. The outraged professor leaves, loudly threatening to have the two arrested.

Passage: A group of puppies are stolen from a pet store by two thieves. A St. Bernard puppy escapes and sneaks into the Newton family's home. The workaholic father, George Newton, doesn't want the responsibility of owning a dog, but his wife, Alice, and their children, Ryce, Ted, and Emily, convince him. They give him the name "Beethoven" when Emily plays a portion of Ludwig van Beethoven's Fifth Symphony on the piano and the dog barks along to it.
Beethoven grows into an extremely fat adult dog and helps the children overcome their problems: he helps Ryce talk to her crush, scares off bullies for Ted, and saves Emily's life when she falls into an irresponsible babysitter's swimming pool. George, jealous of the affection Beethoven receives, feels neglected as his family fawns over him. His antics ruin a barbecue he is hosting for Brad and Brie, rude, unpleasant venture capitalists looking to invest in and secretly swindle him out of his car freshener firm.
The Newtons take Beethoven to a veterinarian, Dr. Herman Varnick, for a routine medical examination and immunizations. They are unaware that he is involved in unethical and deadly animal experimentation. He speaks to George and tells him of a supposed mental instability among St. Bernards making them potentially dangerous to humans and advises him to watch Beethoven closely for any sign of viciousness. He actually requires large-skulled dogs such as St. Bernards for an ammunition test.

Passage: Ted Higgins and Tommy Hinchcliffe work for the Speedy Service Window Washing Company.  They run into a bookie named Nick Craig, who, after mistaking them for employees of the Speedy Messenger Service, sends them to Mr. Stewart's (Ben Weldon) office to collect $50,000 owed to him.  But Stewart has plans of his own: he hires two thugs to rob Ted and Tommy of the money he has just paid.  Tommy flees from the robbers and takes refuge in a room with a gaggle of women who are mailing face powder samples.  He hides the money in an envelope and addresses it to Craig, but it is accidentally switched with an envelope containing a powder sample.  Ted and Tommy return to Craig's office and explain what happened; they assure him that the cash will arrive in the mail the next day.

Instruction: In this task, you're given passages that contain mentions of names of people, places, or things. Some of these mentions refer to the same person, place, or thing. Your job is to write questions that evaluate one's understanding of such references. Good questions are expected to link pronouns (she, her, him, his, their, etc.) or other mentions to people, places, or things to which they may refer. Do not ask questions that can be answered correctly without understanding the paragraph or having multiple answers. Avoid questions that do not link phrases referring to the same entity. For each of your questions, the answer should be one or more phrases in the paragraph, and it should be unambiguous.


Question:
Passage: Providence is served by T. F. Green Airport in Warwick, and general aviation fields also serve the region. Massport has been promoting T. F. Green as an alternative to Boston's Logan International Airport because of over-crowding.Providence Station is located between the Rhode Island State House and the downtown district and is served by Amtrak and MBTA Commuter Rail services, with a commuter rail route running north to Boston and south to T.F. Green Airport and Wickford Junction. Approximately 2,400 passengers pass through the station per day.I-95 runs from north to south through Providence; I-195 connects the city to eastern Rhode Island and southeastern Massachusetts, including New Bedford, Massachusetts and Cape Cod. I-295 encircles Providence, while RI 146 provides a direct connection with Worcester, Massachusetts. The city commissioned and began the long-term project Iway in 2007 to move I-195 for safety reasons, to free up land, and to reunify the Jewelry District with Downcity Providence, which had been split from one another by the highway. The project was estimated to cost $610 million.
Kennedy Plaza in downtown Providence serves as a transportation hub for local public transit as well as a departure point for Peter Pan Bus Lines and Greyhound Lines. Public transit is managed by Rhode Island Public Transit Authority (RIPTA). Through RIPTA alone, Kennedy Plaza serves more than 71,000 people a day. The majority of the area covered by RIPTA is served by traditional buses. Of particular note is the East Side Trolley Tunnel running under College Hill, the use of which is reserved for RIPTA buses. RIPTA also operates the Providence LINK, a system of tourist trolleys in downtown Providence. From 2000 to 2008, RIPTA operated a seasonal ferry to Newport, Rhode Island between May and October, but SeaStreak began operating that ferry route in 2016.

Passage: Because of the 1932 Byrd Road Act, the state government controls most of Virginia's roads, instead of a local county authority as is usual in other states. As of 2018, the Virginia Department of Transportation owns and operates 57,867 miles (93,128 km) of the total 70,105 miles (112,823 km) of roads in the state, making it the third largest state highway system in the United States. Although the Washington Metropolitan Area, which includes Northern Virginia, has the second highest rate of traffic congestion in the nation, Virginia as a whole has the 21st-lowest rate of congestion and the average commute time is 26.9 minutes. Virginia hit peak car usage before the year 2000, making it one of the first such states.
Virginia has Amtrak passenger rail service along several corridors, and Virginia Railway Express (VRE) maintains two commuter lines into Washington, D.C. from Fredericksburg and Manassas. VRE is one of the nation's fastest growing commuter rail services, handling nearly 20,000 passengers a day. Arlington accounted for 40% of Virginia's public transit trips as of 2013, with most of that being from the Washington Metro transit system, which also serves Alexandria  and communities in Fairfax County along I-66. The system is currently expanding west into additional areas of Loudoun County. Major freight railroads in Virginia include Norfolk Southern and CSX Transportation, the former of which is headquartered in Norfolk. Commuter buses include the Fairfax Connector and the Shenandoah Valley Commuter Bus. The Virginia Department of Transportation operates several free ferries throughout Virginia, the most notable being the Jamestown-Scotland ferry which crosses the James River in Surry County.Virginia has five major airports: Washington Dulles International and Reagan Washington National in Northern Virginia, both of which handle over 20 million passengers a year; Richmond International; and Newport News/Williamsburg International Airport and Norfolk International serving the Hampton Roads area. Several other airports offer limited commercial passenger service, and sixty-six public airports serve the state's aviation needs. The Virginia Port Authority's main seaports are those in Hampton Roads, which carried 17,726,251 short tons (16,080,984 t) of bulk cargo in 2007, the sixth most of United States ports. The Eastern Shore of Virginia is the site of Wallops Flight Facility, a rocket testing center owned by NASA, and the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport, a commercial spaceport. Space tourism is also offered through Vienna-based Space Adventures.

Passage: F. Nelson Blount, the heir to the largest seafood processor in the United States, was an avid railroad enthusiast.  When he was just seventeen years old he wrote a book on steam power.  Acquiring the narrow-gauge Edaville Railroad in Carver, Massachusetts in 1955, he began amassing one of the largest collections of antique steam locomotives in the United States.  By 1964, another part of his collection housed at North Walpole, New Hampshire consisted of 25 steam locomotives from the United States and Canada, 10 other locomotives, and 25 pieces of rolling stock.  The Monadnock, Steamtown & Northern Railroad, as the enterprise was then called, ran excursions between Keene and Westmoreland, New Hampshire.  In addition to Edaville Railroad and Steamtown, Blount also ran excursions at Pleasure Island in Wakefield, Massachusetts and Freedomland U.S.A. in New York City.  In the early 1960s, Blount came close to entering into an agreement with the state of New Hampshire in which he would donate 20 locomotives to a museum which was to be located in Keene.  However, the plan, which was originally approved by New Hampshire governor Wesley Powell, in 1962, was later rejected by the new governor, John W. King. An advisory committee had said of the proposed plan, that it "does not take advantage of anything that is singularly and peculiarly New Hampshire."In 1964, incorporation papers were filed for the "Steamtown Foundation for the Preservation of Steam and Railroad Americana".  The non-profit charitable, educational organization was to have nine non-salaried directors, including the five incorporators of which Blount was one.  The other incorporators were former New Hampshire governor, Lane Dwinell; Emile Bussiere; Robert L. Mallat, Jr., mayor of Keene; and Bellows Falls Municipal Judge, Thomas P. Salmon, who later became governor of Vermont.  The president of the Campbell Soup Company, William B. Murphy, who had also served as National Chairman of Radio Free Europe, and Fredrick Richardson, then vice president of Blount Seafood, were among the other directors.  The first order of business for the Steamtown Foundation was to acquire the Blount collection at North Walpole, and relocate it to property once owned by the Rutland Railroad, in Bellows Falls, Vermont.

Instruction: In this task, you're given passages that contain mentions of names of people, places, or things. Some of these mentions refer to the same person, place, or thing. Your job is to write questions that evaluate one's understanding of such references. Good questions are expected to link pronouns (she, her, him, his, their, etc.) or other mentions to people, places, or things to which they may refer. Do not ask questions that can be answered correctly without understanding the paragraph or having multiple answers. Avoid questions that do not link phrases referring to the same entity. For each of your questions, the answer should be one or more phrases in the paragraph, and it should be unambiguous.


Question:
Passage: However, slaves did belong to their master's household. A newly-bought slave was welcomed with nuts and fruits, just like a newly-wed wife. Slaves took part in most of the civic and family cults; they were expressly invited to join the banquet of the Choes, second day of the Anthesteria, and were allowed initiation into the Eleusinian Mysteries. A slave could claim asylum in a temple or at an altar, just like a free man. The slaves shared the gods of their masters and could keep their own religious customs if any.Slaves could not own property, but their masters often let them save up to purchase their freedom, and records survive of slaves operating businesses by themselves, making only a fixed tax-payment to their masters. Athens also had a law forbidding the striking of slaves: if a person struck what appeared to be a slave in Athens, that person might find himself hitting a fellow-citizen, because many citizens dressed no better. It astonished other Greeks that Athenians tolerated back-chat from slaves. Athenian slaves fought together with Athenian freemen at the battle of Marathon, and the monuments memorialize them. It was formally decreed before the battle of Salamis that the citizens should "save themselves, their women, children, and slaves".Slaves had special sexual restrictions and obligations. For example, a slave could not engage free boys in pederastic relationships ("A slave shall not be the lover of a free boy nor follow after him, or else he shall receive fifty blows of the public lash."), and they were forbidden from the palaestrae ("A slave shall not take exercise or anoint himself in the wrestling-schools."). Both laws are attributed to Solon. Fathers wanting to protect their sons from unwanted advances provided them with a slave guard, called a paidagogos, to escort the boy in his travels.
The sons of vanquished foes would be enslaved and often forced to work in male brothels, as in the case of Phaedo of Elis, who at the request of Socrates was bought and freed from such an enterprise by the philosopher's rich friends. On the other hand, it is attested in sources that the rape of slaves was prosecuted, at least occasionally.

Passage: Athenian slaves were the property of their master (or of the state), who could dispose of them as he saw fit. He could give, sell, rent, or bequeath them. A slave could have a spouse and child, but the slave family was not recognized by the state, and the master could scatter the family members at any time. Slaves had fewer judicial rights than citizens and were represented by their master in all judicial proceedings. A misdemeanour that would result in a fine for the free man would result in a flogging for the slave; the ratio seems to have been one lash for one drachma. With several minor exceptions, the testimony of a slave was not admissible except under torture. Slaves were tortured in trials because they often remained loyal to their master. A famous example of a trusty slave was Themistocles's Persian slave Sicinnus (the counterpart of Ephialtes of Trachis), who, despite his Persian origin, betrayed Xerxes and helped Athenians in the Battle of Salamis. Despite torture in trials, the Athenian slave was protected in an indirect way: if he was mistreated, the master could initiate litigation for damages and interest (δίκη βλάβης / dikē blabēs). Conversely, a master who excessively mistreated a slave could be prosecuted by any citizen (γραφὴ ὕβρεως / graphē hybreōs); this was not enacted for the sake of the slave, but to avoid violent excess (ὕβρις / hubris).Isocrates claimed that "not even the most worthless slave can be put to death without trial"; the master's power over his slave was not absolute. Draco's law apparently punished with death the murder of a slave; the underlying principle was: "was the crime such that, if it became more widespread, it would do serious harm to society?" The suit that could be brought against a slave's killer was not a suit for damages, as would be the case for the killing of cattle, but a δίκη φονική (dikē phonikē), demanding punishment for the religious pollution brought by the shedding of blood. In the 4th century BC, the suspect was judged by the Palladion, a court which had jurisdiction over unintentional homicide; the imposed penalty seems to have been more than a fine but less than death—maybe exile, as was the case in the murder of a Metic.

Passage: Curiously, it appears that the Greeks did not "breed" their slaves, at least during the Classical Era, though the proportion of houseborn slaves appears to have been rather large in Ptolemaic Egypt and in manumission inscriptions at Delphi. Sometimes the cause of this was natural; mines, for instance, were exclusively a male domain. On the other hand, there were many female domestic slaves. The example of African slaves in the American South on the other hand demonstrates that slave populations can multiply.Xenophon advised that male and female slaves should be lodged separately, that "…nor children born and bred by our domestics without our knowledge and consent—no unimportant matter, since, if the act of rearing children tends to make good servants still more loyally disposed, cohabiting but sharpens ingenuity for mischief in the bad." The explanation is perhaps economic; even a skilled slave was cheap, so it may have been cheaper to purchase a slave than to raise one. Additionally, childbirth placed the slave-mother's life at risk, and the baby was not guaranteed to survive to adulthood.Houseborn slaves (oikogeneis) often constituted a privileged class. They were, for example, entrusted to take the children to school; they were "pedagogues" in the first sense of the term. Some of them were the offspring of the master of the house, but in most cities, notably Athens, a child inherited the status of its mother.

Instruction: In this task, you're given passages that contain mentions of names of people, places, or things. Some of these mentions refer to the same person, place, or thing. Your job is to write questions that evaluate one's understanding of such references. Good questions are expected to link pronouns (she, her, him, his, their, etc.) or other mentions to people, places, or things to which they may refer. Do not ask questions that can be answered correctly without understanding the paragraph or having multiple answers. Avoid questions that do not link phrases referring to the same entity. For each of your questions, the answer should be one or more phrases in the paragraph, and it should be unambiguous.


Question: Passage: "Shine" is a reggae pop and ska song that lasts three minutes and 24 seconds. It is composed in the key of E minor using common time and a moderately fast tempo of 140 beats per minute. Instrumentation is provided by strings, horns, a guitar, and a piano, to create what Music Times' Carolyn Menyes described as a "crawling beat". March Robisch of Thought Catalog described the single as having "that ska quality that made No Doubt so successful". Digital Spy's Lewis Corner and Amy Davidson wrote that it is a "ska-flecked romp of pumped-up foghorns and plodding brass". A writer from Capital XTRA described it as having a "mellow beat", while Rolling Stone's Daniel Sannwald wrote it has a "party-vibe production".During the track, Stefani's vocal range spans from the low note of D3 to the high note of A4. Williams equated Stefani's tone to that of a "child whisperer" due to her ability to make music that appeals to children. The lyrics are about Paddington Bear and his travels; Rolling Stone called it "a pop-reggae allegory about a bear with an identity crisis". The song opens with Stefani singing the first verse and Williams joining in the chorus, the lyrics including "When you're trying to get home / When you don't wanna be alone / Look at yourself in the mirror / That's your way home". The hook features Stefani repeatedly singing "Shine!" and Williams screaming "Hey!". Andy Morris from Gigwise noted the lyrics, "So we're in a strange new land in Paddington station / But you end up in good hands in the fancy British nation" and "that bear with the red hat", as obvious references to Paddington. According to Sannwald, the lyrics include "Pharrell's 'Happy"-ish 'Everybody is the same inside' bridge" that allows the song to appeal to both children and their parents "without sounding overly patronizing". "Shine" ends with Williams singing in the falsetto register.When discussing the development of the single with MTV News, Stefani said that she initially disagreed with Williams' approach to the lyrics. Williams was more "specific" regarding the lyrics as he wanted to include words directly connected to the film and its character like "bear", "Paddington", and "station"; Stefani said that she preferred for the song to be a "little more abstract". She later reversed this view, saying that she agreed with Williams' interpretation after watching the film with her children and seeing the complete animations of the Paddington Bear character. In an interview with American Top 40, Stefani credited Williams as being central to the recording's development, saying that he was "the one who really got in there and was able to channel the film lyrically and make it really happen".

Passage: "4 Minutes" is an uptempo dance-pop song, composed in an urban, hip hop style. It incorporates the effect of a marching band, a clanging beat and instrumentation from a brass that is played in a "scale-like riff", as described by Caryn Ganz from Rolling Stone. Other musical instruments used are foghorns and cow bells. In "4 Minutes", Madonna and Timberlake sing and trade verses, the rhythm moves towards a hard clanging beat as Madonna sings the lines that the "road to hell is paved with good intentions."  Madonna and Timberlake start singing the chorus with Timberlake singing the line of "We've only got four minutes to save the world". The track continues in the same momentum in the second verse and second chorus whence the track ends where every beat ceases except for Timbaland's characteristic bhangra beats, the brass riffs and Madonna singing the words "tick-tock" repeatedly, after which it ends.According to the sheet music published at Musicnotes.com by Alfred Publishing, the song is written in the key of G minor and is set in time signature of common time with a tempo of 115 beats per minute. Timbaland's bhangra beats are featured at the start and the end of the song. Madonna and Timberlake's vocal range spans two octaves, from F3 to Bb5. The song has a sequence of D–G–C–F–B♭–D in the verses and E♭5–D5–C5–D5 in the chorus, as its chord progression. The lyrics of "4 Minutes" carry a message of social awareness, inspired by Madonna's visit to Africa and the human suffering she witnessed. Jon Pareles of The New York Times stated that "[h]owever, the song sounds as if four minutes is the time taken for a song to be a guaranteed pop hit or the time required for a quickie; in reality it is the only song from Hard Candy album which contains a message of social awareness in it." The sound of a clock ticking away emphasizes this message further. Madonna explained in New York magazine that the line "The road to hell is paved with good intentions" did not relate to her charity work. Instead it was her question to herself: "Do I understand this opinion that I've adopted or this Zeitgeist that I've allowed myself to be swept up in? Because you could have the best intentions but not have enough information and make huge mistakes." Regarding the line "Sometimes I feel what I need is a you intervention", Madonna explained, "[y]eah, meaning, sometimes I think you need to save me.".

Passage: The album opens with "What You Waiting For?", an electropop, new wave, dance-rock, and funk song. Lyrically, the song discusses Stefani's fears of beginning a solo career. "Rich Girl", a collaboration with rapper Eve, is a dancehall and reggae reworking of the English duo Louchie Lou & Michie One's 1994 song "If I Was a Rich Girl", which itself interpolates the song "If I Were a Rich Man" from the 1964 musical Fiddler on the Roof. The Neptunes-produced track "Hollaback Girl" combines 1980s hip hop with dance music. It was written as a response to a derogatory comment that grunge musician Courtney Love made, referring to Stefani as a cheerleader.The fourth track "Cool" chronicles Stefani's previous relationship with Tony Kanal, featuring a new wave and synth-pop production. The song was compared to Cyndi Lauper and Madonna songs from the 1980s. "Bubble Pop Electric", the fifth track, is an electro song featuring André 3000's alias Johnny Vulture. It tells of the two having sex at a drive-in movie, and it was generally well received by critics, who drew comparisons to the 1978 film Grease and its 1982 sequel Grease 2. "Luxurious" is a 1990s-inspired R&B song that lyrically talks about the desire to be rich in love, simultaneously comparing Stefani's lover with luxuries. The seventh track, "Harajuku Girls", is a synth-pop song that was described as a tribute to Tokyo's street culture, produced by Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis."Crash" is an electroclash song that uses automobile metaphors to describe a relationship. "The Real Thing" was described as a vintage Europop song, and features guest appearances from New Order vocalist Bernard Sumner and bassist Peter Hook. The next track, the synth-pop song "Serious", drew comparisons to Madonna's work during the early 1980s. A music video was produced for the song, but it was never officially released, although a snippet of the video surfaced on YouTube in October 2006. "Danger Zone", an electro-rock song, was widely interpreted to be about Stefani's husband Gavin Rossdale having an illegitimate daughter; however, the song had been written before the discovery. The closing track "Long Way to Go" is an outtake from André 3000's album The Love Below (2003). The song discusses interracial dating and uses a sample of Martin Luther King's "I Have a Dream" speech.

Instruction: In this task, you're given passages that contain mentions of names of people, places, or things. Some of these mentions refer to the same person, place, or thing. Your job is to write questions that evaluate one's understanding of such references. Good questions are expected to link pronouns (she, her, him, his, their, etc.) or other mentions to people, places, or things to which they may refer. Do not ask questions that can be answered correctly without understanding the paragraph or having multiple answers. Avoid questions that do not link phrases referring to the same entity. For each of your questions, the answer should be one or more phrases in the paragraph, and it should be unambiguous.


Question: Passage: A new offer had arrived for Pei from the Chinese government in 1982. With an eye toward the transfer of sovereignty of Hong Kong from the British in 1997, authorities in China sought Pei's aid on a new tower for the local branch of the Bank of China. The Chinese government was preparing for a new wave of engagement with the outside world and sought a tower to represent modernity and economic strength. Given the elder Pei's history with the bank before the Communist takeover, government officials visited the 89-year-old man in New York to gain approval for his son's involvement. Pei then spoke with his father at length about the proposal. Although the architect remained pained by his experience with Fragrant Hill, he agreed to accept the commission.The proposed site in Hong Kong's Central District was less than ideal; a tangle of highways lined it on three sides. The area had also been home to a headquarters for Japanese military police during World War II, and was notorious for prisoner torture. The small parcel of land made a tall tower necessary, and Pei had usually shied away from such projects; in Hong Kong especially, the skyscrapers lacked any real architectural character. Lacking inspiration and unsure of how to approach the building, Pei took a weekend vacation to the family home in Katonah, New York. There he found himself experimenting with a bundle of sticks until he happened upon a cascading sequence.Pei felt that his design for the Bank of China Tower needed to reflect "the aspirations of the Chinese people".  The design that he developed for the skyscraper was not only unique in appearance, but also sound enough to pass the city's rigorous standards for wind-resistance.   The tower was planned around a visible truss structure, which distributed stress to the four corners of the base. Using the reflective glass that had become something of a trademark for him, Pei organized the facade around a series of boxed X shapes. At the top, he designed the roofs at sloping angles to match the rising aesthetic of the building. Some influential advocates of feng shui in Hong Kong and China criticized the design, and Pei and government officials responded with token adjustments.As the tower neared completion, Pei was shocked to witness the government's massacre of unarmed civilians at the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989. He wrote an opinion piece for The New York Times titled "China Won't Ever Be the Same", in which he said that the killings "tore the heart out of a generation that carries the hope for the future of the country". The massacre deeply disturbed his entire family, and he wrote that "China is besmirched.".

Passage: While Pei and Musho were coordinating the Dallas project, their associate Henry Cobb had taken the helm for a commission in Boston. John Hancock Insurance chairman Robert Slater hired I. M. Pei & Partners to design a building that could overshadow the Prudential Tower, erected by their rival.After the firm's first plan was discarded due to a need for more office space, Cobb developed a new plan around a towering parallelogram, slanted away from the Trinity Church and accented by a wedge cut into each narrow side. To minimize the visual impact, the building was covered in large reflective glass panels; Cobb said this would make the building a "background and foil" to the older structures around it. When the Hancock Tower was finished in 1976, it was the tallest building in New England.
Serious issues of execution became evident in the tower almost immediately. Many glass panels fractured in a windstorm during construction in 1973. Some detached and fell to the ground, causing no injuries but sparking concern among Boston residents. In response, the entire tower was reglazed with smaller panels. This significantly increased the cost of the project. Hancock sued the glass manufacturers, Libbey-Owens-Ford, as well as I. M. Pei & Partners, for submitting plans that were "not good and workmanlike". LOF countersued Hancock for defamation, accusing Pei's firm of poor use of their materials; I. M. Pei & Partners sued LOF in return. All three companies settled out of court in 1981.The project became an albatross for Pei's firm. Pei himself refused to discuss it for many years. The pace of new commissions slowed and the firm's architects began looking overseas for opportunities. Cobb worked in Australia and Pei took on jobs in Singapore, Iran, and Kuwait. Although it was a difficult time for everyone involved, Pei later reflected with patience on the experience. "Going through this trial toughened us," he said. "It helped to cement us as partners; we did not give up on each other.".

Passage: After usurping the throne of the Later Zhou dynasty, Emperor Taizu of Song (r. 960–976) spent sixteen years conquering the rest of China, reuniting much of the territory that had once belonged to the Han and Tang empires and ending the upheaval of the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period. In Kaifeng, he established a strong central government over the empire. The establishment of this capital marked the start of the Northern Song period. He ensured administrative stability by promoting the civil service examination system of drafting state bureaucrats by skill and merit (instead of aristocratic or military position) and promoted projects that ensured efficiency in communication throughout the empire. In one such project, cartographers created detailed maps of each province and city that were then collected in a large atlas. Emperor Taizu also promoted groundbreaking scientific and technological innovations by supporting such works as the astronomical clock tower designed and built by the engineer Zhang Sixun.The Song court maintained diplomatic relations with Chola India, the Fatimid Caliphate of Egypt, Srivijaya, the Kara-Khanid Khanate of Central Asia, the Goryeo kingdom in Korea, and other countries that were also trade partners with Japan. Chinese records even mention an embassy from the ruler of "Fu lin" (拂菻, i.e. the Byzantine Empire), Michael VII Doukas, and its arrival in 1081. However, China's closest neighbouring states had the greatest impact on its domestic and foreign policy. From its inception under Taizu, the Song dynasty alternated between warfare and diplomacy with the ethnic Khitans of the Liao dynasty in the northeast and with the Tanguts of the Western Xia in the northwest. The Song dynasty used military force in an attempt to quell the Liao dynasty and to recapture the Sixteen Prefectures, a territory under Khitan control since 938 that was traditionally considered to be part of China proper (Most parts of today's Beijing and Tianjin). Song forces were repulsed by the Liao forces, who engaged in aggressive yearly campaigns into Northern Song territory until 1005, when the signing of the Shanyuan Treaty ended these northern border clashes. The Song were forced to provide tribute to the Khitans, although this did little damage to the Song economy since the Khitans were economically dependent upon importing massive amounts of goods from the Song. More significantly, the Song state recognized the Liao state as its diplomatic equal. The Song created an extensive defensive forest along the Song-Liao border to thwart potential Khitan cavalry attacks.

Instruction: In this task, you're given passages that contain mentions of names of people, places, or things. Some of these mentions refer to the same person, place, or thing. Your job is to write questions that evaluate one's understanding of such references. Good questions are expected to link pronouns (she, her, him, his, their, etc.) or other mentions to people, places, or things to which they may refer. Do not ask questions that can be answered correctly without understanding the paragraph or having multiple answers. Avoid questions that do not link phrases referring to the same entity. For each of your questions, the answer should be one or more phrases in the paragraph, and it should be unambiguous.


Question: Passage: At last, the newly crowned King of Denmark, Edvard, and his wife and Queen, Dr. Paige Morgan, find time to fly to Belavia for their secret honeymoon. They spend their Christmas holidays at a ski resort, but as they take a tour of Belavia's natural beauty, Eddie and Paige discover that the evil Prime Minister Polonius  has given orders to bulldoze the precious forests to drill for oil. Paige and Eddie decide they must do everything they can to save the forest, even if it means putting aside their honeymoon. Then, the couple bump into Paige's ex-boyfriend, Scott, a journalist. Eddie immediately becomes jealous. Even though Edvard suspects Scott cannot be trusted, Eddie and Paige ask him for help with the media to try and stop the minister's evil plans. Scott, however, is being controlled by the evil minister, who tells him to spy on the couple. Scott tries to back out, but fails. Eddie tries to get an audience with the prince of Belavia, but fails, so he and Paige go to the Holiday Ball. Meanwhile, Scott tries to kiss Paige and says he is sorry he let her go. Disgusted, Paige walks away and goes to find Eddie, only to find him drunk.

Passage: Mary's (Elle Fanning) seemingly dull Christmas is suddenly filled with excitement and adventure following the arrival of her Uncle Albert, who gives her a Nutcracker as a gift. Later that night, Mary dreams that the Nutcracker – called N.C. – comes to life and takes her on a wondrous journey. They discover that the Nazi-like Rat King has usurped the Nutcracker's kingdom.
When Mary and N.C. go to the top of the Christmas tree, they meet a fairy and, as she begins to sing, N.C. looks at his hand, as it begins to turn human. Worried about this he runs into the sleigh, but leaves his human hand revealed, and Mary sees this. Mary, seeing this, goes to N.C. and rubs his hand as we see that he is in fact a human crying with tears of joy that he is human again. The snow fairy begins to sing and toys appear and begin to ice skate around the tree.
N.C. takes Mary to the top to show her his city. The two come up with a plan to shut down the smoke factory. Suddenly N.C. is starting to turn back in to a doll. Then the tree is shaking and Mary falls off, only to awake to being in her room.
Mary tries to tell her parents about it but they think she is not telling the truth. Later on in the movie N.C appears to have been killed, but Mary's tears and declaration of love restore him to life and transform him into a prince, his true form. The rats are all defeated and overthrown, but now Mary must reluctantly awaken from her dream. Before she is fully awake, N.C. promises that they will meet again. When Mary then goes to Uncle Albert's workshop she meets his new young neighbor, who is the exact image of the Nutcracker Prince and asks to be called N.C. The two become close friends, and the last shot of the film shows them ice skating together.

Passage: Trans-America Air Lines pilot "Three Star" Bob Halsey is in love with stewardess Judy Wagner, but she wants him to stop his daredevil ways. So does his boss, Lackey. Confident in his abilities and knowing that he is the airline's best pilot, he pays neither any mind.
Federal agent Brownell urgently requests Lackey's cooperation: Clement Williams must be flown from Los Angeles to Washington, D.C., with a cylinder full of a revolutionary new explosive he has invented. However, Lackey's assistant Jason is eavesdropping on him for Taggart, a spy.
He eavesdrops again when Lackey chooses Bob as pilot and Judy's brother Tom as co-pilot. Taggart sends three men to provoke Bob into a fistfight. While Bob is knocked out, another pilot, George Wexley, chats casually with Tom, "learns" that Bob is late for the special trip, and offers to protect Bob's job by taking over.
Over the lower Sierras, the Ford Trimotor airliner explodes.
Bob and Lackey fly to the crash site and talk to Brownell. Tom's cap is there. Back in Los Angeles, they report that there are no survivors.
Frantic for news of her brother, Judy drives to the site before they return, evading the police roadblock. She is recognized by Jason, who is traveling with the spies to a nearby house they are using. Improvising a plan, they pose as federal agents and stop her.

Instruction: In this task, you're given passages that contain mentions of names of people, places, or things. Some of these mentions refer to the same person, place, or thing. Your job is to write questions that evaluate one's understanding of such references. Good questions are expected to link pronouns (she, her, him, his, their, etc.) or other mentions to people, places, or things to which they may refer. Do not ask questions that can be answered correctly without understanding the paragraph or having multiple answers. Avoid questions that do not link phrases referring to the same entity. For each of your questions, the answer should be one or more phrases in the paragraph, and it should be unambiguous.


Question:
Passage: In the first print Hogarth introduces Tom Nero, whose surname may have been inspired by the Roman Emperor of the same name or a contraction of "No hero". Conspicuous in the centre of the plate, he is shown being assisted by other boys to insert an arrow into a dog's rectum, a torture apparently inspired by a devil punishing a sinner in Jacques Callot's Temptation of St. Anthony. An initialled badge on the shoulder of his light-hued and ragged coat shows him to be a pupil of the charity school of the parish of St Giles. Hogarth used this notorious slum area as the background for many of his works including Gin Lane and Noon, part of the Four Times of the Day series. A more tender-hearted boy, perhaps the dog's owner, pleads with Nero to stop tormenting the frightened animal, even offering food in an attempt to appease him. This boy supposedly represents a young George III. His appearance is deliberately more pleasing than the scowling ugly ruffians that populate the rest of the picture, made clear in the text at the bottom of the scene:
The other boys carry out equally barbaric acts: the two boys at the top of the steps are burning the eyes out of a bird with a hot needle heated by the link-boy's torch; the boys in the foreground are throwing at a cock (perhaps an allusion to a nationalistic enmity towards the French, and a suggestion that the action takes place on Shrove Tuesday, the traditional day for cock-shying); another boy ties a bone to a dog's tail—tempting, but out of reach; a pair of fighting cats are hung by their tails and taunted by a jeering group of boys; in the bottom left-hand corner a dog is set on a cat, with the latter's intestines spilling out onto the ground; and in the rear of the picture another cat tied to two bladders is thrown from a high window. In a foreshadowing of his ultimate fate, Tom Nero's name is written under the chalk drawing of a man hanging from the gallows; the meaning is made clear by the schoolboy artist pointing towards Tom. The absence of parish officers who should be controlling the boys is an intentional rebuke on Hogarth's part; he agreed with Henry Fielding that one of the causes for the rising crime rate was the lack of care from the overseers of the poor, who were too often interested in the posts only for the social status and monetary rewards they could bring.Below the text the authorship is established: Designed by W. Hogarth, Published according to Act of Parliament. 1 Feb.. 1751 The Act of Parliament referred to is the Engraving Copyright Act 1734. Many of Hogarth's earlier works had been reproduced in great numbers without his authority or any payment of royalties, and he was keen to protect his artistic property, so had encouraged his friends in Parliament to pass a law to protect the rights of engravers. Hogarth had been so instrumental in pushing the Bill through Parliament that on passing it became known as the "Hogarth Act".

Passage: In common with other prints by Hogarth, such as Beer Street and Gin Lane, The Four Stages of Cruelty was issued as a warning against immoral behaviour, showing the easy path from childish thug to convicted criminal. His aim was to correct "that barbarous treatment of animals, the very sight of which renders the streets of our metropolis so distressing to every feeling mind". Hogarth loved animals, picturing himself with his pug in a self-portrait, and marking the graves of his dogs and birds at his home in Chiswick.Hogarth deliberately portrayed the subjects of the engravings with little subtlety since he meant the prints to be understood by "men of the lowest rank" when seen on the walls of workshops or taverns. The images themselves, as with Beer Street and Gin Lane, were roughly drawn, lacking the finer lines of some of his other works. Fine engraving and delicate artwork would have rendered the prints too expensive for the intended audience, and Hogarth also believed a bold stroke could portray the passions of the subjects just as well as fine lines, noting that "neither great correctness of drawing or fine engraving were at all necessary".To ensure that the prints were priced within reach of the intended audience, Hogarth originally commissioned the block-cutter J. Bell to produce the four designs as woodcuts. This proved more expensive than expected, so only the last two of the four images were cut and were not issued commercially at the time. Instead, Hogarth proceeded to create the engravings himself and announced the publication of the prints, along with that of Beer Street and Gin Lane, in the London Evening Post over three days from 14–16 February 1751. The prints themselves were published on 21 February 1751 and each was accompanied by a moralising commentary, written by the Rev. James Townley, a friend of Hogarth's. As with earlier engravings, such as Industry and Idleness, individual prints were sold on "ordinary" paper for 1s. (one shilling, equating to about £ 7.70 in 2019 terms), cheap enough to be purchased by the lower classes as a means of moral instruction. "Fine" versions were also available on "superior" paper for 1s. 6d. (one shilling and sixpence, about £ 11.60 in 2019 terms) for collectors.Variations on plates III and IV exist from Bell's original woodcuts, bearing the earlier date of 1 January 1750, and were reprinted in 1790 by John Boydell, but examples from either of the woodcut printings are uncommon.

Passage: Hogarth was pleased with the results. European Magazine reported that he commented to a bookseller from Cornhill (a Mr. Sewell):
there is no part of my works of which I am so proud, and in which I now feel so happy, as in the series of The Four Stages of Cruelty because I believe the publication of theme has checked the diabolical spirit of barbarity to the brute creation which, I am sorry to say, was once so prevalent in this country.
In his unfinished Apology for Painters he commented further:
I had rather, if cruelty has been prevented by the four prints, be the maker of them than the [Raphael] cartoons, unless I lived in a Roman Catholic country.
In his 1817 book Shakespeare and His Times, Nathan Drake credits the representation of "throwing at cocks" in the first plate for changing public opinion about the practice, which was common at the time, and prompting magistrates to take a harder line on offenders. In his "Lectures on Ethics" Immanuel Kant refers to the engravings as an example of how cruelty towards animals leads indirectly to failing duties towards humans as Hogarth "brings home to us the terrible rewards of cruelty, and this should be an impressive lesson to children."
Others found the series less to their liking. Charles Lamb dismissed the series as mere caricature, not worthy to be included alongside Hogarth's other work, but rather something produced as the result of a "wayward humour" outside of his normal habits. Art historian Allan Cunningham also had strong feelings about the series:
I wish it had never been painted. There is indeed great skill in the grouping, and profound knowledge of character; but the whole effect is gross, brutal and revolting. A savage boy grows into a savage man, and concludes a career of cruelty and outrage by an atrocious murder, for which he is hanged and dissected.
The Anatomy Act 1832 ended the dissection of murderers, and most of the animal tortures depicted were outlawed by the Cruelty to Animals Act 1835, so by the 1850s The Four Stages of Cruelty had come to be viewed as a somewhat historical series, though still one with the power to shock, a power it retains for a modern audience.

Instruction: In this task, you're given passages that contain mentions of names of people, places, or things. Some of these mentions refer to the same person, place, or thing. Your job is to write questions that evaluate one's understanding of such references. Good questions are expected to link pronouns (she, her, him, his, their, etc.) or other mentions to people, places, or things to which they may refer. Do not ask questions that can be answered correctly without understanding the paragraph or having multiple answers. Avoid questions that do not link phrases referring to the same entity. For each of your questions, the answer should be one or more phrases in the paragraph, and it should be unambiguous.


Question: Passage: The dominating colours in the Cottage Garden are hot saturated shades of red, orange, and yellow, a colour scheme that both Sackville-West and Nicolson claimed as their own conception. Lord considers it as much a traditional "cottage garden as Marie Antoinette was a milkmaid". Here, as elsewhere, Sackville-West was much influenced by William Robinson, a gardener she greatly admired and who had done much to popularise the concept of the cottage garden. It contains four beds, surrounded by simple paths, with planting in colours that Sackville-West described as those of the sunset. Plants include a range of dahlias, a particular favourite of Nicolson's, and the red-hot poker, which he despised. In a 1937 letter to his wife he observed, "I think the secret of your gardening is simply that you have the courage to abolish ugly or unsuccessful flowers. Except for those beastly red-hot pokers which you have a weakness for, there is not an ugly flower in the whole place."The Herb Garden contains sage, thyme, hyssop, fennel and an unusual seat built around a camomile bush. Known to the family as Edward the Confessor's chair, it was constructed by Copper, the Nicolson's chauffeur. Originally laid out in the 1930s, the garden was revitalised by John Vass in the years immediately after the Second World War. The Lion Basin in the centre of the garden was brought back from Turkey in 1914. Most of the over one hundred herbs in the garden are now started in the nurseries and planted out at appropriate times of year.

Passage: Although the estate as a whole is 450 acres (1.8 km2), the gardens themselves occupy only 5 acres (0.020 km2). Anne Scott-James sets out the principles of the design: "a garden of formal structure, of a private and secret nature, truly English in character, and plant[ed] with romantic profusion". As gardeners and landscapers, both Sackville-West and Nicolson were amateurs. Nicolson largely undertook the design and Sackville-West the planting. The landscape is designed as a series of "garden rooms", each with a different character of colour or theme, the enclosures being high clipped hedges and pink brick walls. The rooms and "doors" are so arranged as to offer glimpses into other parts of the garden.
Sackville-West described the overall design: "a combination of long axial walks, usually with terminal points, and the more intimate surprise of small geometrical gardens opening off them, rather as the rooms of an enormous house would open off the corridors". Nicolson considered the garden's success was down to this "succession of privacies: the forecourt, the first arch, the main court, the tower arch, the lawn, the orchard. All a series of escapes from the world, giving the impression of cumulative escape". In the White Garden and along some paths in other gardens, the flower beds were set off from the paths by closely clipped low square hedges of box.
Sackville-West's planting philosophy is summed up in the advice from one of her gardening columns in the Observer: "Cram, cram, cram, every chink and cranny". Gardener Sarah Raven (Adam Nicolson's wife) notes the use of the vertical dimension, as well as horizontal paths, in her planting. Assisted by the number of walls still standing from the Tudor manor, and constructing more of her own, Sackville-West remarked "I see we are going to have heaps of wall space for climbing things."Old roses formed the centrepiece of the planting, and their history appealed to her as much as their appearance did: "there is nothing scrimpy or stingy about them. They have a generosity which is as desirable in plants as in people", and ultimately around 200 varieties were grown at Sissinghurst.

Passage: "A symphony in subtle shades of white and green", the White Garden is considered the "most renowned" and most influential of all of Sissinghurst's garden rooms. Planned before the war, it was completed in the winter of 1949–1950. Using a palette of white, silver, grey, and green, it has been called "one of Vita and Harold's most beautiful and romantic visions". Sackville-West recorded her original inspiration in a letter to Nicolson dated 12 December 1939: "I have got what I hope will be a lovely scheme for it: all white flowers, with some clumps of very pale pink". The concept of single-colour gardens had enjoyed some popularity at the end of the 19th century, but few such gardens remained when Sissinghurst was designed. Influences for the White Garden include Hidcote and Phyllis Reiss's garden at Tintinhull, both of which Vita had seen. Gertrude Jekyll had discussed the concept, but argued for varying the white palette with the use of blue or yellow plants, advice followed by Reiss. But neither Hidcote nor Tintinhull equals the "full-scale symphony" of the White Garden at Sissinghurst. A more prosaic motivation for the colour scheme was to provide reflected illumination for Sackville-West and Nicolson as they made their way from their bedrooms at the South Cottage to the Priest's House for dinner.
The focal point of the garden was originally four almond trees, encased in a canopy of the white rose, Rosa mulliganii. By the 1960s, the weight of the roses had severely weakened the trees, and they were replaced with an iron arbour designed by Nigel Nicolson. Beneath the arbour is sited a Ming dynasty vase bought in Cairo. A lead statue of a Vestal Virgin, cast by Toma Rosandić from the wooden original which is in the Big Room, presides over the garden. Sackville-West intended that the statue should be enveloped by a weeping pear tree, Pyrus salicifolia 'Pendula', and the present tree was planted after her original was destroyed in the Great Storm of 1987. Lord considers the White Garden "the most ambitious and successful of its time, the most entrancing of its type".A possibly apocryphal story records a visit by the colour-loving gardener Christopher Lloyd, during which he is supposed to have scattered seeds of brightly coloured nasturtiums across the lawn. Troy Scott Smith, the current head gardener, is undertaking a major research project on the history of the White Garden with the intention of recreating the original planting scheme in its entirety. This project has seen the number of plants being propagated in the Sissinghurst nursery rise from 400 to over 530.

Instruction: In this task, you're given passages that contain mentions of names of people, places, or things. Some of these mentions refer to the same person, place, or thing. Your job is to write questions that evaluate one's understanding of such references. Good questions are expected to link pronouns (she, her, him, his, their, etc.) or other mentions to people, places, or things to which they may refer. Do not ask questions that can be answered correctly without understanding the paragraph or having multiple answers. Avoid questions that do not link phrases referring to the same entity. For each of your questions, the answer should be one or more phrases in the paragraph, and it should be unambiguous.


Question: Passage: Since King George VI's death, Queen Elizabeth II's custom has been to spend the anniversary of that and of her own accession privately with her family at Sandringham House, and, more recently, to use it as her official base from Christmas until February. In celebrating Christmas at Sandringham, the Queen follows the tradition of her last three predecessors, whereas her great-great-grandmother, Queen Victoria, held her celebrations at Windsor Castle. The taxation arrangements of the monarch meant that no inheritance tax was paid on the Sandringham or Balmoral estates when they passed to the Queen, at a time when it was having a deleterious effect on other country estates. On her accession, the Queen asked her husband, the Duke of Edinburgh, to take on the responsibility for the management of the estate. The Duke has worked to move towards self-sufficiency, generating additional income streams, taking more of the land in hand, and amalgamating many of the smaller tenant farms.In January 1957 the Queen received the resignation of the Prime Minister Anthony Eden at the house. Eden's wife, Clarissa, recorded the event in her diary, "8 January – Anthony has to go through a Cabinet and listening to Harold prosing for half an hour. Then by train to Sandringham. Many photographers. We arrive into the hall where everyone is looking at the television." At the end of that year, the Queen made her first televised Christmas broadcast from Sandringham. In the 1960s, plans were initiated to demolish the house and replace it with a modern residence by David Roberts, an architect who worked mainly at the University of Cambridge. The plans were not taken forward, but modernisation of the interior of the house and the removal of a range of ancillary buildings were carried out by Hugh Casson, who also decorated the Royal Yacht, Britannia. In 1977, for her silver jubilee, the Queen opened the house to the public.Sandringham continues to operate as a sporting estate. The pheasants and partridge are no longer reared for this purpose, and Sandringham is now one of the few wild shoots in England. Along with her equestrian interest in the Sandringham Stud, where she has bred several winning horses, the Queen has developed a successful gun dog breeding programme at Sandringham. Following the tradition of a kennels at Sandringham established by her great grandfather, when Queen Alexandra kept over 100 dogs on the estate, the Queen prefers black labrador retrievers, over the yellow type favoured by her father, and the terriers bred by her earlier predecessors. Since his retirement from official duties in August 2017, the Duke of Edinburgh has spent increasing amounts of time at Wood Farm, a cottage on the Sandringham Estate used by the Duke and the Queen when not hosting guests at the main house. Sandringham is one of the two homes owned by the Queen in her private capacity, rather than as head of state, the other being Balmoral Castle.

Passage: On the night of his father's death, Edward VIII summarily ordered that the clocks at Sandringham be returned to Greenwich Mean Time, ending the tradition of Sandringham Time begun by his grandfather over 50 years earlier. Edward had rarely enjoyed his visits to Sandringham, either in his father's time or that of his grandfather. He described a typical dinner at the house in a letter to his then mistress Freda Dudley Ward, dated 26 December 1919; "it's too dull and boring for words. Christ how any human beings can ever have got themselves into this pompous secluded and monotonous groove I just can't imagine". In another letter, evenings at the "big house" – Edward stayed at York Cottage with his father – were recorded as "sordidly dull and boring". His antipathy to the house was unlikely to have been lessened by his late father's will, which was read to the family in the saloon at the house. His brothers were each left £750,000 while Edward was bequeathed no monetary assets beyond the revenues from the Duchy of Cornwall. A codicil also prevented him from selling the late King's personal possessions; Lascelles described the inheritance as "the Kingship without the cash".Edward's concerns regarding his income led him immediately to focus on the expense associated with running his late father's private homes. Sandringham he described as a "voracious white elephant", and he asked his brother George to undertake a review of the management of the estate, which had been costing his father £50,000 annually in subsidies at the time of his death. The review recommended significant retrenchments, and its partial implementation caused considerable resentment among the dismissed staff. Edward spent a single night of his reign at the house, bringing Wallis Simpson for a shooting party in October 1936. The party was interrupted by a request to meet with prime minister Stanley Baldwin, and having arrived on a Sunday, the King returned to Fort Belvedere the next day. He never returned to Sandringham; and, his attention diverted by the impending crisis arising from his attachment to Simpson, within two months of his only visit to the house as King, he had abdicated. On his abdication, as Sandringham and Balmoral Castle were the private property of the monarch, it was necessary for King George VI to purchase both properties. The price paid, £300,000, was a cause of friction between the new King and his brother.

Passage: On 27 July 1843 Sharpe married Elizabeth Fletcher, second sister of John Fletcher, at Bolton Parish Church. The couple had five children: Francis in 1845, Edmund junior (known as Ted) in 1847, Emily in 1849, Catherine (known as Kate) in 1850, and Alfred in 1853.When Sharpe moved his family from Lancaster to live in North Wales in early 1856 he was aged 47.  The seven years he spent there were later described, in a Memoir published in 1882 by the Architectural Association, as "perhaps the happiest years of his life". The family initially lived in a semi-detached house called Bron Haul near Betws-y-Coed, on what is now the A5 road.  Two years later he bought a larger property called Coed-y-Celyn on the east bank of the River Lledr, about a mile south of Betws-y-Coed. After moving to Geneva, the family lived for about three years in a rented property called Richemont on the road from Geneva to Chêne-Bougeries. Finally in 1866 the family moved back to Lancaster to live in Scotforth, then a small village to the south of the town.Elizabeth Sharpe died on 15 March 1876, a month after the consecration of St Paul, Scotforth where a plaque to her memory can be found in the chancel of the church. A year later, Sharpe travelled to northern Italy with his two daughters, his youngest son Alfred, and three research assistants, to make drawings of 12th-century churches in the region. During the trip he became seriously ill with a chest infection and died on 8 May, in or near Milan.  His body was taken to Lancaster, where he was buried on 19 May, alongside his wife, in the municipal cemetery.  "Glowing obituaries" were carried by the local newspapers and the architectural press, including The Builder, The Building News, and The Architect. His estate was valued at "under £14,000" (equivalent to £1,290,000 as of 2018).  A plaque to his memory was placed in the chancel of St Paul's, next to that of his wife.

Instruction: In this task, you're given passages that contain mentions of names of people, places, or things. Some of these mentions refer to the same person, place, or thing. Your job is to write questions that evaluate one's understanding of such references. Good questions are expected to link pronouns (she, her, him, his, their, etc.) or other mentions to people, places, or things to which they may refer. Do not ask questions that can be answered correctly without understanding the paragraph or having multiple answers. Avoid questions that do not link phrases referring to the same entity. For each of your questions, the answer should be one or more phrases in the paragraph, and it should be unambiguous.


Question: Passage: Massenet was a fluent and skilful orchestrator, and willingly provided ballet episodes for his operas, incidental music for plays, and a one-act stand-alone ballet for Vienna (Le carillon, 1892). Macdonald remarks that Massenet's orchestral style resembled that of Delibes, "with its graceful movement and bewitching colour", which was highly suited to classical French ballet. The Méditation for solo violin and orchestra, from Thaïs, is possibly the best known non-vocal piece by Massenet, and appears on many recordings. Another popular stand-alone orchestral piece from the operas is Le dernier sommeil de la Vierge from La Vierge, which has featured on numerous discs since the middle of the 20th century.A Parisian critic, after seeing La grand' tante, declared that Massenet was a symphonist rather than a theatre composer. At the time of the British premiere of Manon in 1885, the critic in The Manchester Guardian, reviewing the work enthusiastically, nevertheless echoed his French confrère's view that the composer was really a symphonist, whose music was at its best when purely orchestral.  Massenet took a wholly opposite view of his talents. He was temperamentally unsuited to writing symphonically: the constraints of sonata form bored him. He wrote, in the early 1870s, "What I have to say, musically, I have to say rapidly, forcefully, concisely; my discourse is tight and nervous, and if I wanted to express myself otherwise I would not be myself." His efforts in the concertante field made little mark, but his orchestral suites, colourful and picturesque according to Grove, have survived on the fringes of the repertoire.  Other works for orchestra are a symphonic poem, Visions (1891), an Ouverture de Concert (1863) and Ouverture de Phèdre (1873). After early attempts at chamber music as a student, he wrote little more in the genre. Most of his early chamber pieces are now lost; three pieces for cello and piano survive.

Passage: Before his enforced rest in 1924, Holst demonstrated a new interest in counterpoint, in his Fugal Overture of 1922 for full orchestra and the neo-classical Fugal Concerto of 1923, for flute, oboe and strings. In his final decade he mixed song settings and minor pieces with major works and occasional new departures; the 1925 Terzetto for flute, violin and oboe, each instrument playing in a different key, is cited by Imogen as Holst's only successful chamber work. Of the Choral Symphony completed in 1924, Matthews writes that, after several movements of real quality, the finale is a rambling anticlimax. Holst's penultimate opera, At the Boar's Head (1924), is based on tavern scenes from Shakespeare's Henry IV, Parts 1 and 2. The music, which is largely derived from old English melodies gleaned from Cecil Sharp and other collections, has pace and verve; the contemporary critic Harvey Grace discounted the lack of originality, a facet which he said "can be shown no less convincingly by a composer's handling of material than by its invention".Egdon Heath (1927) was Holst's first major orchestral work after The Planets. Matthews summarises the music as "elusive and unpredictable [with] three main elements: a pulseless wandering melody [for strings], a sad brass processional, and restless music for strings and oboe." The mysterious dance towards the end is, says Matthews, "the strangest moment in a strange work". Richard Greene in Music & Letters describes the piece as "a larghetto dance in a siciliano rhythm with a simple, stepwise, rocking melody", but lacking the power of The Planets and, at times, monotonous to the listener. A more popular success was A Moorside Suite for brass band, written as a test piece for the National Brass Band Festival championships of 1928. While written within the traditions of north-country brass-band music, the suite, Short says, bears Holst's unmistakable imprint, "from the skipping 6/8 of the opening Scherzo, to the vigorous melodic fourths of the concluding March, the intervening Nocturne bearing a family resemblance to the slow-moving procession of Saturn". 'A Moorside Suite' has undergone major revisionism in the article 'Symphony Within: rehearing Holst's 'A Moorside Suite' by Stephen Arthur Allen in the Winter 2017 edition of 'The Musical Times'. As with 'Egdon Heath' – commissioned as a symphony – the article reveals the symphonic nature of this brass-band work.

Passage: Messiaen's next work was the large-scale La Transfiguration de Notre Seigneur Jésus-Christ. The composition occupied him from 1965 to 1969 and the musicians employed include a 100-voice ten-part choir, seven solo instruments and large orchestra. Its fourteen movements are a meditation on the story of Christ's Transfiguration. Shortly after its completion, Messiaen received a commission from Alice Tully for a work to celebrate the U.S. bicentennial.  He arranged a visit to the US in spring 1972, and was inspired by Bryce Canyon in Utah, where he observed the canyon's distinctive colours and birdsong. The twelve-movement orchestral piece Des canyons aux étoiles... was the result, first performed in 1974 in New York.In 1971, he was asked to compose a piece for the Paris Opéra. While reluctant to undertake such a major project, he was persuaded in 1975 to accept the commission and began work on his Saint-François d'Assise. The composition was intensive (he also wrote his own libretto) and occupied him from 1975 to 1979; the orchestration was carried out from 1979 until 1983. Messiaen preferred to describe the final work as a "spectacle" rather than an opera. It was first performed in 1983. Some commentators at the time thought that the opera would be his valediction (at times Messiaen himself believed so), but he continued to compose. In 1984 he published a major collection of organ pieces, Livre du Saint Sacrement; other works include birdsong pieces for solo piano, and works for piano with orchestra.In the summer of 1978, Messiaen retired from teaching at the Conservatoire. He was promoted to the highest rank of the Légion d'honneur, the Grand-Croix, in 1987. An operation prevented his participation in the celebration of his 70th birthday in 1978, but in 1988 tributes for Messiaen's 80th included a complete performance in London's Royal Festival Hall of St. François, which the composer attended, and Erato's publication of a seventeen-CD collection of Messiaen's music including a disc of the composer in conversation with Claude Samuel.Although in considerable pain near the end of his life (requiring repeated surgery on his back) he was able to fulfil a commission from the New York Philharmonic Orchestra, Éclairs sur l'au-delà..., which was premièred six months after his death. He died in Paris on April 27, 1992.On going through his papers, Loriod discovered that, in the last months of his life, he had been composing a concerto for four musicians he felt particularly grateful to, namely herself, the cellist Mstislav Rostropovich, the oboist Heinz Holliger and the flautist Catherine Cantin (hence the title Concert à quatre). Four of the five intended movements were substantially complete; Yvonne Loriod undertook the orchestration of the second half of the first movement and of the whole of the fourth with advice from George Benjamin. It was premiered by the dedicatees in September 1994.

Instruction: In this task, you're given passages that contain mentions of names of people, places, or things. Some of these mentions refer to the same person, place, or thing. Your job is to write questions that evaluate one's understanding of such references. Good questions are expected to link pronouns (she, her, him, his, their, etc.) or other mentions to people, places, or things to which they may refer. Do not ask questions that can be answered correctly without understanding the paragraph or having multiple answers. Avoid questions that do not link phrases referring to the same entity. For each of your questions, the answer should be one or more phrases in the paragraph, and it should be unambiguous.


Question:
Passage: In Victorian London, England on Christmas Eve, Mr. Stahlbaum gives his children the Christmas presents his wife Marie had set aside for them before she died. The younger daughter, Clara, receives a handcrafted egg-shaped box, which she is unable to unlock. In the package, she discovers a note from her mother that states that the inside of the egg is all she would ever need. The Stahlbaum family then heads to a Christmas Eve ball, hosted by the children's godfather and skilled engineer Drosselmeyer. Refusing to dance with her father, Clara scurries from the crowd to ask Drosselmeyer how to unlock her egg. He then reveals to Clara that the egg was a creation of his that he gifted to Clara's mother when she was younger, and that her mother's wish was to bestow the gift to her daughter.
Returning to the ballroom, Clara gets scolded by her father for disobeying him and not dancing with him. They call each other selfish, after which Drosselmeyer announces it being time for the children to receive their gifts. Clara finds her string with her name on it, signifying her gift, and follows it into a forest in a parallel world where she sees the key. Before she can grab it, a mouse snatches it. Unable to reach the mouse, which crosses a frozen-over river, Clara approaches Captain Philip Hoffman the Nutcracker. He leads her across the bridge into the Fourth Realm, but they are unable to obtain the key from the mice. Captain Philip then guides Clara to the palace, where she meets three regents of each land from the Sugar Plum Fairy of the Land of Sweets, Shivers of the Land of Snowflakes, and Hawthorne of the Land of Flowers. They tell Clara that they are at war with the Land of Amusements which they now refer to as "the Fourth Realm".

Passage: On New Year's Eve, Trotty, a poor elderly "ticket-porter" or casual messenger, is filled with gloom at the reports of crime and immorality in the newspapers, and wonders whether the working classes are simply wicked by nature. His daughter Meg and her long-time fiancé Richard arrive and announce their decision to marry next day. Trotty hides his misgivings, but their happiness is dispelled by an encounter with the pompous Alderman Cute, plus a political economist and a young gentleman with a nostalgia, all of whom make Trotty, Meg and Richard feel they hardly have a right to exist, let alone marry.
Trotty carries a note for Cute to Sir Joseph Bowley MP, who dispenses charity to the poor in the manner of a paternal dictator. Bowley is ostentatiously settling his debts to ensure a clean start to the new year, and berates Trotty because he owes a little rent and ten or twelve shillings to his local shop which he cannot pay off. Returning home, convinced that he and his fellow poor are naturally ungrateful and have no place in society, Trotty encounters Will Fern, a poor countryman, and his orphaned niece, Lilian. Fern has been accused of vagrancy and wants to visit Cute to set matters straight, but from a conversation overheard at Bowley's house, Trotty is able to warn him that Cute plans to have him arrested and imprisoned. He takes the pair home with him and he and Meg share their meagre food and poor lodging with the visitors. Meg tries to hide her distress, but it seems she has been dissuaded from marrying Richard by her encounter with Cute and the others.

Passage: Engineers George Melton and Allan Chadwick work furiously to complete a design on time, even though it is Christmas Eve. Michael O'Brien, the third partner in the firm, arrives with presents for all and kindly lets their employees leave. The three old men then go home to the mansion they share with Madame Tanya, an elderly countess dispossessed by the Russian Revolution, for a dinner with prestigious guests.
When the guests cancel at the last minute, George is convinced it is because of his dark past. To relieve George's black mood, Michael comes up with an idea to obtain new guests for dinner. Each man throws out a wallet containing $10 and his business card into the street. George's is found by Arlene Terry, who merely gives the money to her driver and discards the wallet. However, the other two are returned by more considerate people: Texas cowboy James Houston and teacher Jean Lawrence. They stay for dinner and soon become good friends with the three men and Madame Tanya. James and Jean also fall in love with each other, delighting the three men.
When the engineers have to travel to another city on business, Madame Tanya begs Michael to take the train rather than fly. He assures her it is perfectly safe, but Madame Tanya's premonition proves tragically correct when their aircraft crashes in a storm, killing all three. When James and Jean come to announce that they are engaged, they receive the bad news. The ghosts of the three men return home, where they are dimly sensed by Madame Tanya.

Instruction: In this task, you're given passages that contain mentions of names of people, places, or things. Some of these mentions refer to the same person, place, or thing. Your job is to write questions that evaluate one's understanding of such references. Good questions are expected to link pronouns (she, her, him, his, their, etc.) or other mentions to people, places, or things to which they may refer. Do not ask questions that can be answered correctly without understanding the paragraph or having multiple answers. Avoid questions that do not link phrases referring to the same entity. For each of your questions, the answer should be one or more phrases in the paragraph, and it should be unambiguous.