Question: Passage: In 1985, guitarist Fredrik Thordendal formed a band in Umeå, a college town in northern Sweden with a population of 105,000. The band, originally named Metallien, recorded a number of demo tapes, after which it disbanded. Thordendal, however, continued playing under a different name with new band members.Meshuggah was formed in 1987 by vocalist and guitarist Jens Kidman, and took the name Meshuggah from the Yiddish word for "crazy", which is derived from Hebrew word מְשֻׁגָּע. The band recorded several demos before Kidman left, which prompted the remaining members to disband. Kidman then formed a new band, Calipash, with guitarist Thordendal, bassist Peter Nordin and drummer Niklas Lundgren. Kidman, who also played guitar, and Thordendal decided to restore the name Meshuggah for the new band.On February 3, 1989, Meshuggah released the self-titled, three-song EP Meshuggah, which is commonly known as Psykisk Testbild (a title that could be translated as "Psychological Test-Picture"). This 12" (30 cm) vinyl EP had only 1,000 copies released, sold by local record store Garageland. The EP's back cover features the band members with cheese doodles on their faces.After replacing drummer Niklas Lundgren with Tomas Haake in 1990, Meshuggah signed a contract with German heavy metal record label Nuclear Blast and recorded its debut full-length album, Contradictions Collapse. The LP, originally entitled (All this because of) Greed, was released on January 1, 1991. The album received positive reviews, but was not a commercial success. Soon after, Kidman decided to concentrate on vocals, and rhythm guitarist Mårten Hagström, who had already played in a band with Haake when they were in sixth grade, was recruited. The new lineup recorded the EP None at Tonteknik Recordings in Umeå in 1994 for release later that year. A Japanese version was also released, including lyrics printed in Japanese.During this period, Thordendal, who was working as a carpenter, severed the tip of his left middle finger, while Haake injured his hand in a router accident. As a result, the band was unable to perform for several months. Thordendal's fingertip was later reattached, and he went on to make a full recovery. The Selfcaged EP was recorded in April and May 1994, but its release was delayed to later in 1995 due to the accidents.

Passage: Opeth was formed as a death metal band in 1989 in Stockholm, Sweden, by lead vocalist David Isberg. Isberg asked former Eruption band member Mikael Åkerfeldt, who was just 16 years old at the time, to join Opeth as a bassist. When Åkerfeldt showed up to practice on the day after Isberg invited him, it became clear that Isberg had not told the band members, including the band's current bassist, that Åkerfeldt would be joining the band. An ensuing argument led to all members but Isberg and Åkerfeldt leaving to form a new project. The band name was derived from the word "Opet", taken from the Wilbur Smith novel The Sunbird. In this novel, Opet is the name of a fictional Phoenician city in South Africa translated as "City of the Moon".
Isberg and Åkerfeldt recruited drummer Anders Nordin, bassist Nick Döring, and guitarist Andreas Dimeo. Unsatisfied with Opeth's slow progress, Döring and Dimeo left the band after their first performance, and were replaced by guitarist Kim Pettersson and bassist Johan De Farfalla. After the next show, De Farfalla left Opeth to spend time with his girlfriend in Germany, and was initially replaced by Mattias Ander, before Åkerfeldt's friend Peter Lindgren took on the role of bassist. Rhythm guitarist Kim Pettersson left following the band's next performance, and Lindgren switched to guitar, with the role of bassist falling to Stefan Guteklint. The following year, David Isberg left the band citing "creative differences".Following Isberg's departure, Åkerfeldt took over vocal duties and he, Lindgren, and Nordin spent the next year writing and rehearsing new material. The group began to rely less on the blast beats and aggression typical of death metal, and incorporated acoustic guitars and guitar harmonies into their music; developing the core sound of Opeth. Bassist Guteklint was dismissed by the band after they signed their first record deal with Candlelight Records in 1994. Opeth initially employed former member De Farfalla as a session bassist for their demo recordings, and he went on to join on a full-time basis following the release of Opeth's debut album, "Orchid", in 1995.

Passage: Meshuggah's experimentation, stylistic variation and changes during its career cross several musical subgenres. Heavy metal subgenres experimental metal or avant-garde metal are umbrella terms that enable description of the career of the band in general. Extreme metal crosses both thrash metal and death metal (or technical death metal), which are at root of the sound of Meshuggah's music, which has also been described as groove metal. The band has also been labelled as math metal and progressive metal. Meshuggah also incorporates elements of experimental jazz. In its review of Nothing, Allmusic describes Meshuggah as "masterminds of cosmic calculus metal—call it Einstein metal if you want". Meshuggah's early output was also considered alternative metal. Meshuggah creates a recognizable sonic imprint and distinct style.Trademarks and characteristics that define Meshuggah's sound and songwriting include polyrhythms, polymetered riff cycles, rhythmic syncopation, rapid key and tempo changes and neo-jazz chromatics. Hagström notes that "it doesn't really matter if something is hard to play or not. The thing is, what does it do to your mind when you listen to it? Where does it take you?" A trademark of Thordendal is jazz fusion-like soloing and improvisation. He is also known for the usage of a "breath controller" device. Haake is known for his cross-rhythm drumming with "jazzlike cadence". The vocal style of Jens Kidman varies between hardcore-style shouts and "robotic" death metal vocals.In polymeters typically used by Meshuggah, the guitars might play in odd meters such as 5/16 or 17/16, while drums play in 4/4. One particular example of Haake's use of polymeter is 4/4 against 23/16 bimeter, in which he keeps the hi-hat and ride cymbal in 4/4 time but uses the snare and double bass drums in 23/16 time. On "Rational Gaze" (from Nothing), Haake plays simple 4/4 time, hitting the snare on each third beat, for 16 bars. At the same time, the guitars and bass are playing same quarter notes, albeit in a different time signature; eventually both sides meet up again at the 64th beat. Hagström notes about the polymeters, "We've never really been into the odd time signatures we get accused of using. Everything we do is based around a 4/4 core. It's just that we arrange parts differently around that center to make it seem like something else is going on.".

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 1996, Jamie Randall is fired from a Pittsburgh electronics store for having sex with his manager's girlfriend. His wealthy brother Josh announces at the dinner table at their parents' house that he has found Jamie a job as a pharmaceutical sales representative. After attending a Pfizer training program where he has sex with the instructor, Jamie goes to work for the company and tries to get doctors to prescribe Zoloft and Zithromax. He is rebuffed, much to the dismay of his regional manager, Bruce, who sees Jamie as his ticket to the "big leagues" of Chicago. Bruce says if Jamie can get Dr. Knight to prescribe Zoloft instead of Prozac, other doctors will follow his lead. Jamie tries to get access to Dr. Knight by hitting on his female employees until, exasperated, Dr. Knight unethically permits him to observe him at work, during which time he accidentally sees a disrobing patient, Maggie Murdock, who suffers from early onset Parkinson's disease.
Jamie angles a date with Maggie, who has sex with him. Jamie is later beaten up by top-selling Prozac rep Trey Hannigan, one of Maggie's ex-lovers, who warns him to stay away from her and the doctors. That night, Jamie is unable to get an erection. Maggie teasingly says he should use the new erectile dysfunction drug that his company has developed. Bruce confirms that such a drug, to be called Viagra, is about to be marketed. Jamie soon starts selling Viagra, an instant success. Jamie wants a committed relationship, but Maggie refuses. Jamie confronts her while she helps senior citizens onto a bus bound for Canada to get cheap prescription drugs, and they get into an argument.

Passage: Bill Whitney seems to have it all.  His family is wealthy and he lives in a mansion in Beverly Hills, California.  He's popular at his high school, looks to be a shoo-in for class president, has a cute cheerleader girlfriend and owns a new Jeep Wrangler to drive around in.  Despite this, he tells his therapist that he does not trust or fit in with his high-society family. When his sister's ex-boyfriend Blanchard gives him a surreptitiously recorded tape of what sounds like his family engaged in a vile, murderous orgy, Bill begins to suspect that his feelings are justified.
Bill gives the tape to his therapist Dr. Cleveland to listen to.  When he comes back for his appointment, Dr. Cleveland plays the tape back for Bill.  The audio has now changed and now merely contains the sounds of his sister Jenny enjoying her coming out party.  Bill insists that what he'd heard before was real and calls Blanchard to get another copy.  When he arrives at their meeting place, Bill discovers an ambulance and police officers gathered around Blanchard's crashed van.  A body is placed into the back of the ambulance, but Bill is prevented from seeing its face.
Bill attends a party hosted by his upper-class classmate Ferguson.  There, Ferguson lasciviously confirms that the first audio tape Bill listened to—with the sounds of an orgy on it—was the real tape.  Angry and confused, he leaves the party with Clarissa, a beautiful girl he'd been admiring.  They have sex at her house and Bill meets Clarissa's bizarre, hair-loving mother.

Passage: The film follows one week in the life of 24-year-old Jamie Conway. Originally from Pennsylvania, Jamie works as a fact-checker for a major New York magazine, but because he spends his nights partying with his glib best friend Tad and his abuse of cocaine which has led to him coming in late frequently and not finishing assignments on time, he's on the verge of getting fired by his stern boss, Clara Tillinghast. His wife Amanda, a fast-rising model, just left him; he is still reeling from the death of his mother from cancer a year earlier; and he follows a tabloid story about a pregnant woman in a coma. The movie captures some of the glossy chaos and decadence of the New York nightlife during the 1980s, and also looks at a man desperately trying to escape the pain in his life.
After Jamie gets fired from his job, he goes on a further downward spiral with more cocaine and alcohol abuse. He attempts to go on a date with Tad's cousin Vicky as a favor so Tad could, in turn, have a fling with a woman he claims is a Penthouse Pet. Jamie also avoids phone calls from his younger brother Michael who has come to New York to look for him. Megan attempts to help him out with finding a new job as well as try to open up about his troubled life and the reason why Amanda left him. After a confrontation with Michael, and attending a party where Amanda is in attendance, Jamie finally decides to open up and come clean with himself before he ends up either dead or in jail. At the party, Tad is so intoxicated on alcohol and cocaine that he doesn't seem to realize that a woman he is flirting with is actually a man in drag. He phones Vicky and tells her that he and his brother Michael helped their dying mother commit suicide to end her suffering. Jamie refuses Tad's offer of more drugs and women to spend time with and leaves the party. Jamie wanders the streets until dawn when he decides that today will be a better day to get his life back on track.

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 film opens with two small-time crooks Tommy Uva and Rosie DeToma getting high and robbing a florist on Valentine's Day. Tommy holds up the cashier with a pistol while Rosie waited in the car she inherited from her father. Tommy is arrested and sent to prison for 18 months. In the meantime, Rosie gets a job at a debt collection agency run by Dave Lovell, who went to jail for bilking major companies out of $800,000 through fraudulent invoices. Lovell reformed his life and mainly hires ex-cons at his firm. He is happy to give Tommy a job and a second chance. Tommy is restless and instead of following the call script, he often counsels people on how to defraud Lovell's company.
When Tommy sees some mafiosos in his neighborhood, he grows enraged. He calls them fat old guys living off their reputation, and he resents the way the mafia treated his father. Over the course of the film, it is revealed that Tommy's father started his shop with a mafia loan, and he suffered frequent beatings when he was late with payments. Tommy's mother and brother still run the shop, but his mother blames Tommy's criminal activity for breaking her husband's heart and leading to his death. Whereas, Tommy blames his father's death completely on the humiliation he suffered at the hands of the mafia.
Tommy skips work one day to attend the trial of John Gotti. He watches Sammy the Bull's testimony, and he perks up when Sammy explains that no guns are allowed in mafia social clubs. He cases one of the clubs that Sammy mentioned, and then he pitches the idea to rob the club to Rosie. He explains that it will be safe since no one will have a gun, and that the mafia would never call the cops to report the crime. He gets an Uzi, which he does not know how to use. Rosie reluctantly shows him how to load it, and agrees to the plan.

Passage: Eddie Campbell watches a stagecoach as it rides toward a Nebraska town. Other members of his gang are waiting there to rob the bank. Ben Cutler, owner of the stage line, is on board, and is returning home to be wed to Ruth Granger.
During the holdup, a bank teller is killed. Ben joins the posse. His daughter, Laurie, is in love with Eddie and doesn't believe him to be truly bad. Eddie shoots the Marshal, however. He is wounded by Ben and brought back to town to stand trial.
Ben, who had once been a lawman but gave up the profession after his daughter was born is offered a temporary job as Marshal. Selby, a publicity-seeking lawyer who defends Eddie, insinuates that Ben was just acting in vengeance because his client had been intimate with Ben's daughter. Ben punches him for this slur on Laurie's character.
Eddie is found guilty due to Ben's eyewitness testimony. He is sentenced to hang. Townspeople begin to have their doubts, even Ruth, partly due to Eddie's manipulation of their emotions. Laurie tries to smuggle a gun to Eddie's cell, but her father finds it.
Ben must ride to the state's capital after a plea for clemency from the governor is made. As soon as he is gone, Eddie's gang busts him out of jail. He physically assaults Laurie, revealing his true nature. Ben returns just in time, though, and shoots a fleeing Eddie atop the gallows.

Passage: Small-time Boston crook Tony Pino tries to make a name for himself. He and his five associates pull off a robbery whenever they can. Tony and his gang easily rob over $100,000 in cash from a Brink's armored car, after which Tony disguises himself as a sparkplug salesman to get an inside look at Brink's large and so-called "impregnable fortress" headquarters in the city's North End, a company renowned for unbreachable security as a private "bank" throughout the East Coast.
Once inside, Tony realizes that Brink's is anything but a fortress and that employees treat the money "like garbage." Still wary of Brink's public image, Tony breaks in one night after casing the building. He finds that only two doors in the building are locked, and one is easily bypassed by leaping a gate. The only thing locked in the building is the vault.
Tony also realizes that despite what Brink's claims, there is only a 10-cent alarm in the vault room itself, almost impossible to set off. It appears that Brink's had relied so much on its reputation that it had not even bothered locking the doors. Pino begins to plan a robbery, using the rooftop of a neighboring building as a watch tower.
Tony and his dim brother-in-law Vinnie put together a motley gang of thieves. They include the debonair Jazz Maffie and a slightly deranged Iwo Jima veteran, Specs O'Keefe, who proposes to blow open the Brink's safe with a bazooka. Over the crew's objections, Pino also invites the arrogant fence Joe McGinnis to be in on the job.

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 1997, Luke Glanton is a motorcycle stuntman. In Schenectady, New York, Luke reunites with his ex-lover Romina Gutierrez, who is dating another man named Kofi Kancam. Luke discovers that Romina has a baby son named Jason that he fathered which she never revealed to him, so Luke quits his job to stay with Romina and their son.
Luke begins working part-time for auto mechanic Robin Van Der Hook. Luke asks Robin for more work and Robin who can't offer it legitimately, reveals his past as a successful bank robber and offers to partner up for a few robberies. Skeptical at first, Luke decides to take Robin up on his offer after planning and setting up their first job. They successfully pull off a few heists by having Luke rob the bank at gun point, use his bike as a getaway vehicle and ride it into a box truck driven by Robin.
Luke uses his share of the money to get closer to Romina, and visits her and his son more often. Luke takes Romina and Jason out for ice cream, and the three ask a passerby to take a photo to capture the moment.
Luke and Kofi, who objects to Luke's presence, get into a fight, and Luke is arrested after hitting Kofi in the head with a wrench. After Robin bails him out of jail, Luke insists on giving his robbery money to Romina to give to Jason when he's older. Luke insists on resuming their bank robberies, but Robin objects, and the two have a falling-out that results in Robin dismantling Luke's motorcycle. Luke robs Robin at gunpoint, and uses the money to buy a new bike.
Luke attempts to rob a bank alone but fails to properly plan for the job and is pursued by police. Luke is cornered in the top floor of a house by rookie police officer Avery Cross and calls Romina, asking her not to tell Jason who he was. Avery enters the room and shoots Luke in the stomach. Luke fires back, hitting Avery in the leg, but falls three stories out of the window to his death.

Passage: Andy, Trevor, and Billy are childhood friends.
As young adults, Billy sells drugs and Andy does deliveries for him.
One night, Trevor delivers instead and gets busted by narcs.
5 years later, Trevor is released from jail and learns his girlfriend Laura is now with Billy.
Trevor gets back with her and decides to rob a local mobster.  Trevor wants some cash to buy Laura some gifts and Andy was told by some local mobsters that they are investing money with huge profits and he wants some cash to buy in. However, their robbery is very sloppy and the head mobster quickly figures out what happened.  However, he and Andy's grandfather were good friends, so he tells Andy and Trevor that they can work off what they owe by smuggling stolen diamonds.
Billy finds out what is going on and is mildly amused by it until he realizes that Trevor has gotten back together with Laura behind his back.  He retaliates by convincing the mobsters that Trevor is a junkie and is stealing the diamonds that he is supposed to be delivering to supply his habit. He also convinces the diamond dealer that Trevor cannot be trusted with real diamonds and he gives him fake diamonds instead.  When he delivers them to the mob, they quickly spot them as fakes and assume Trevor switched them.
Billy figured by doing this, the mobsters would send a goon to kill Trevor and with him out of the picture, he could have Laura back with no blood on his hands. However, since he was the one to notify the mobsters, they tell him if he wants Trevor dead he has to do the killing himself.
He finds Trevor at Laura's house having just made love and kidnaps him at gunpoint. He takes Trevor to a field to kill him. Even though Trevor begs for his life and Billy struggles with his conscience for the briefest of moments, he pulls the trigger anyway, killing Trevor in cold blood.

Passage: David Burke is a former policeman who was ruined when he refused to cooperate with state crime investigators. He has asked Earl Slater, a hard-bitten, racist, ex-con, to help him rob an upstate bank, promising him $50,000 if the robbery is successful. Burke also recruits Johnny Ingram, a nightclub entertainer. He doesn't want the job but is addicted to gambling and is deeply in debt.
Slater, who is supported by his girlfriend, Lorry, learns that Ingram is black and refuses the job. Later, he realizes that he needs the money, and joins Ingram and Burke in the enterprise.
Tensions between Ingram and Slater increase as they near completion of the crime. Burke is seen by a police officer leaving the scene of the raid, and is mortally wounded in the ensuing shootout with local police. He commits suicide, shooting himself to avoid capture. Slater is cavalier about Burke's death, which infuriates Ingram. Slater and Ingram begin to fight each other even as they try to evade the police.  Ingram and Slater escape and run into a nearby fuel storage depot. They chase each other onto the top of the fuel tanks. When they exchange gunfire, the fuel tanks ignite, causing a large explosion. Afterward, their burned corpses are indistinguishable from each other. The last scene focuses on a sign at the entrance of the fuel storage depot saying, "Stop, Dead End".

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: Don Diego Vega is urgently called home by his father. To all outward appearances, he is the foppish son of wealthy ranchero and former Alcade Don Alejandro Vega, having returned to California after his military education in Spain.
Don Diego is horrified at the way the common people are now mistreated by the corrupt Alcalde, Luis Quintero, who had forced his father from the position of Alcalde. Don Diego adopts the guise of El Zorro ("The Fox"), a masked outlaw dressed entirely in black, who becomes the defender of the common people and a champion for justice.
In the meantime he romances the Alcalde's beautiful and innocent niece, Lolita, whom he grows to love. As part of his plan, Don Diego simultaneously flirts with the Alcalde's wife Inez, filling her head with tales of Madrid fashion and culture and raising her desire to move there with her corrupt husband, Luis.
In both his guises Don Diego must contend with the governor's ablest henchman, the malevolent Captain Esteban Pasquale. He eventually dispatches the Captain in a fast-moving rapier duel-to-the-death, forcing a regime change; Don Diego's plan all along.

Passage: In the Old West, a calm man named Tommy, known as "White Knife" by the Native American tribe who raised him after his mother was murdered is to marry a member of the tribe named Smoking Fox. Following a run-in with a deranged, Native American-racist food proprietor named Clem and the Left-Eye Gang (who have all removed their right eyes to join) led by Will Patch, Tommy is visited by a bank robber named Frank Stockburn who claims to be Tommy's biological father. Tommy explains to Frank that his mother was shot by a man with a tattooed hand when she was escorting him to school during his childhood. Frank also tells Tommy that he is dying of consumption and had amassed $50,000 which he buried in a meadow next to a pine tree and is offering to Tommy and the Natives. The next day, a group of bandits with connections to Frank come to the village, led by the ruthless Cicero who wants Frank to give them his "big score" he gained a while back. Frank has the bandits kidnap him so he can lead them to the $50,000 at the so-called "Singing Windmill", in return for the bandits not attacking Tommy or the Indians. With no time to search the meadow and find the money, and to live to his tribe's standards, Tommy decides to resort to stealing from dishonorable persons (corrupt politicians, racist bankers, and thugs alike) to obtain the amount needed and save his father. During his quest, Tommy discovers that he has 5 half-brothers: Mexican burro rider Ramon whose innkeeper mother had a fling with Frank; mentally challenged yet happy-go-lucky Lil' Pete whose strong neck makes him immune to hanging; feral mountain-man Herm who speaks incomprehensibly while having helped his mother sell their moonshine.

Passage: Miklo is a man of Mexican and White American ethnicity who grew up in El Pico Aliso barrio in east Los Angeles. Upon moving back home from Las Vegas, Nevada, Miklo goes to stay with his two cousins Paco and Cruz. Miklo tells Cruz that he wants to join their gang Vatos Locos. While Paco is initially skeptical, Miklo later proves himself when he performs an attack on a rival gang, Tres Puntos. Afterwards he is made a member of Vatos Locos.
However, the Tres Puntos gang soon takes revenge by brutally attacking Cruz who is a budding artist, and damages his back for life. When Vatos Locos learn of the attack, they perform a well-planned counterattack. However, things go wrong when Miklo ends up getting shot by their rival gang's leader, "Spider". Miklo is able to shoot and kill Spider, but has to be rushed to the hospital by Paco while being chased by police. Paco crashes into another car at the El Pino tree and they are both arrested.
From here, the trio's paths diverges: Miklo is sent to San Quentin State Prison for murder, Paco volunteers for military service in the United States Marine Corps as an alternative choice to prison, and Cruz continues his passion for art. He also becomes a heroin addict due to the recurring back pain. His addiction leads to him being disowned by his family after his 12-year-old brother, Juanito, sees Cruz's needle next to him while he is passed out and naively decides to inject himself with it and dies from an overdose.  Paco becomes an L.A.P.D. narcotics detective after leaving the Marine Corps.

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: Michael Joseph Jackson (August 29, 1958 – June 25, 2009) was an American singer, songwriter, and dancer. Dubbed the "King of Pop", he is widely regarded as one of the most significant cultural figures of the 20th century and one of the greatest entertainers of all time. He was also known for his unorthodox lifestyle, residing in a private amusement park he called Neverland Ranch, and often becoming the focus of tabloid scrutiny. Jackson's contributions to music, dance, and fashion, along with his publicized personal life, made him a global figure in popular culture for over four decades.
The eighth child of the Jackson family, Michael made his professional debut in 1964 with his elder brothers Jackie, Tito, Jermaine, and Marlon as a member of the Jackson 5. He began his solo career in 1971 while at Motown Records, and in the early 1980s, became a dominant figure in popular music. His music videos, including those for "Beat It", "Billie Jean", and "Thriller" from his 1982 album Thriller, are credited with breaking racial barriers and transforming the medium into an art form and promotional tool. Their popularity helped bring the television channel MTV to fame. Bad (1987) was the first album to produce five US Billboard Hot 100 number-one singles. He continued to innovate throughout the 1990s with videos such as "Black or White" and "Scream", and forged a reputation as a touring artist. Through stage and video performances, Jackson popularized complicated dance techniques such as the robot and the moonwalk, to which he gave the name. His sound and style have influenced artists of various genres.
Jackson is one of the best-selling music artists of all time, with estimated sales of over 350 million records worldwide; Thriller is the best-selling album of all time, with estimated sales of 66 million copies worldwide. His other albums, including Off the Wall (1979), Bad (1987), Dangerous (1991), and HIStory (1995), also rank among the world's best-selling. He won hundreds of awards (more than any other artist in the history of popular music), has been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame twice, and is the only pop or rock artist to have been inducted into the Dance Hall of Fame. His other achievements include Guinness world records (including the Most Successful Entertainer of All Time), 15 Grammy Awards (including the Legend and Lifetime Achievement awards), 26 American Music Awards (more than any other artist), and 13 number-one US singles (more than any other male artist in the Hot 100 era). Jackson was the first artist to have a top ten single in the Billboard Hot 100 in five different decades. In 2016, his estate earned $825 million, the highest yearly amount for a celebrity ever recorded by Forbes.

Passage: Jackson had 13 number-one singles in the US in his solo career—more than any other male artist in the Hot 100 era—and estimated sales of over 350 million records worldwide making him one of the best-selling artists in music history.
In 1989, Jackson's annual earnings from album sales, endorsements, and concerts were estimated at $125 million. Forbes placed Jackson's annual income at $35 million in 1996 and $20 million in 1997. In the year after his death, more than 8.2 million of Jackson's albums sold in the US, and 35 million albums worldwide, more than any other artist in 2009. In 2014, Jackson became the first artist to have a top ten single in the Billboard Hot 100 in five different decades. He became the first artist to sell one million music downloads in a week, with 2.6 million song downloads. Thriller, Number Ones and The Essential Michael Jackson became the first catalog albums to outsell any new album. Jackson also became the first artist to have four of the top 20 best-selling albums in a single year in the US.Forbes reported in August 2018 that Jackson's total career pretax earnings in life and death were $4.2 billion. Sales of his recordings through Sony's music unit earned him an estimated $300 million in royalties. He may have earned another $400 million from concerts, music publishing (including his share of the Beatles catalog), endorsements, merchandising and music videos.Estimates of Jackson's net worth during his life range from negative $285 million to positive $350 million for 2002, 2003 and 2007. In 2013, the executors of Jackson's estate filed a petition in the United States Tax Court as a result of a dispute with the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) over US federal estate taxes. The executors claim that it was worth about $7 million, the IRS that it was worth over $1.1 billion. In February 2014, the IRS reported that Jackson's estate owed $702 million; $505 million in taxes, and $197 million in penalties. A trial was held from February 6 to 24, 2017, and a decision is expected in 2019.In 2016, Forbes estimated annual gross earnings by the Jackson estate at $825 million, the largest ever recorded for a celebrity, mostly due to the sale of the Sony/ATV catalog. It was the seventh consecutive year since his death in which Jackson's annual earnings were over $100 million. In 2018 the figure was $400 million. According to Forbes in 2016, Jackson had been the top-earning dead celebrity each year since his death.

Passage: Thriller is the sixth studio album by American singer Michael Jackson, released on November 30, 1982, in the United States by Epic Records and internationally by CBS Records. It explores genres similar to Jackson's previous album, Off the Wall (1979), including pop, post-disco, rock and funk. Recording took place from April to November 1982 at Westlake Recording Studios in Los Angeles, with a production budget of $750,000.
In just over a year, Thriller became the world's best-selling album, having sold an estimated 66 million copies. It is the second-best-selling album in the United States, behind the Eagles' album Their Greatest Hits (1971–1975), and was the first to reach 30x platinum, with 33 million shipped album-equivalent units certified in the US. The album won a record-breaking eight Grammy Awards in 1984, including Album of the Year. It produced seven singles—"The Girl Is Mine", "Billie Jean", "Beat It", "Wanna Be Startin' Somethin' ", "Human Nature", "P.Y.T. (Pretty Young Thing)", and "Thriller"—all of which reached the top 10 on the US Billboard Hot 100 chart. Thriller broke racial barriers in pop music, enabling Jackson's appearances on MTV and meeting with President Ronald Reagan at the White House. The album was one of the first to use music videos as successful promotional tools, and the videos for the songs "Thriller", "Billie Jean", and "Beat It" all received regular rotation on MTV.
In 2001, a special edition reissue was released, which contains additional audio interviews, demo recordings and the song "Someone in the Dark", a Grammy-winning track from the E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial storybook. In 2008, Thriller was reissued again as Thriller 25, containing remixes with contemporary artists, previously unreleased songs, and a DVD with three music videos and Jackson's performance of "Billie Jean" from the 1983 television special Motown 25.
In the same year, the album was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame along with Off the Wall. In 2012, Slant Magazine named Thriller the best album of the 1980s". In 2003, Rolling Stone placed the album at number 20 on their list of "The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time". The album was listed by the National Association of Recording Merchandisers at number three on its "Definitive 200" album list. Thriller was also included in the Library of Congress' National Recording Registry of culturally significant recordings, and the Thriller music video was included in the National Film Preservation Board's National Film Registry of "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant films".

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: Zion National Park is an American national park located in southwestern Utah near the town of Springdale. A prominent feature of the 229-square-mile (590 km2) park is Zion Canyon, which is 15 miles (24 km) long and up to 2,640 ft (800 m) deep. The canyon walls are reddish and tan-colored Navajo Sandstone eroded by the North Fork of the Virgin River. The lowest point in the park is 3,666 ft (1,117 m) at Coalpits Wash and the highest peak is 8,726 ft (2,660 m) at Horse Ranch Mountain. Located at the junction of the Colorado Plateau, Great Basin, and Mojave Desert regions, the park has a unique geography and a variety of life zones that allow for unusual plant and animal diversity. Numerous plant species as well as 289 species of birds, 75 mammals (including 19 species of bat), and 32 reptiles inhabit the park's four life zones: desert, riparian, woodland, and coniferous forest. Zion National Park includes mountains, canyons, buttes, mesas, monoliths, rivers, slot canyons, and natural arches.
Human habitation of the area started about 8,000 years ago with small family groups of Native Americans, one of which was the semi-nomadic Basketmaker Anasazi (c. 300 CE). Subsequently, the Virgin Anasazi culture (c. 500) and the Parowan Fremont group developed as the Basketmakers settled in permanent communities. Both groups moved away by 1300 and were replaced by the Parrusits and several other Southern Paiute subtribes. Mormons came into the area in 1858 and settled there in the early 1860s. In 1909, President William Howard Taft named the area Mukuntuweap National Monument in order to protect the canyon. In 1918, the acting director of the newly created National Park Service, Horace Albright, drafted a proposal to enlarge the existing monument and change the park's name to Zion National Monument, Zion being a term used by the Mormons. According to historian Hal Rothman: "The name change played to a prevalent bias of the time. Many believed that Spanish and Indian names would deter visitors who, if they could not pronounce the name of a place, might not bother to visit it. The new name, Zion, had greater appeal to an ethnocentric audience." On November 20, 1919, Congress redesignated the monument as Zion National Park, and the act was signed by President Woodrow Wilson. The Kolob section was proclaimed a separate Zion National Monument in 1937, but was incorporated into the national park in 1956.The geology of the Zion and Kolob canyons area includes nine formations that together represent 150 million years of mostly Mesozoic-aged sedimentation. At various periods in that time warm, shallow seas, streams, ponds and lakes, vast deserts, and dry near-shore environments covered the area. Uplift associated with the creation of the Colorado Plateau lifted the region 10,000 feet (3,000 m) starting 13 million years ago.

Passage: The Great Basin, Mojave Desert, and Colorado Plateau converge at Zion and the Kolob canyons. This, along with the varied topography of canyon–mesa country, differing soil types, and uneven water availability, provides diverse habitat for the equally diverse mix of plants and animals that live in the area. The park is home to 289 bird, 79 mammals, 28 reptiles, 7 fish, and 6 amphibian species. These organisms make their homes in one or more of four life zones found in the Park: desert, riparian, woodland, and coniferous forest.Desert conditions persist on canyon bottoms and rocky ledges away from perennial streams. Sagebrush, prickly pear cactus, and rabbitbrush, along with sacred datura and Indian paintbrush, are common. Utah penstemon and golden aster can also be found. Milkvetch and prince's plume are found in pockets of selenium-rich soils.Common daytime animals include mule deer, rock squirrels, pinyon jays, and whiptail and collared lizards. Desert cottontails, jackrabbits, and Merriam's kangaroo rats come out at night. Cougars, bobcats, coyotes, badgers, gray foxes, and ring-tail cats are the top predators.Cooler conditions persist at mid-elevation slopes, from 3,900 to 5,500 feet (1,200 to 1,700 m). Stunted forests of pinyon pine and juniper coexist here with manzanita shrubs, cliffrose, serviceberry, scrub oak, and yucca.  Stands of ponderosa pine, Gambel oak, manzanita and aspen populate the mesas and cliffs above 6,000 feet (1,800 m).
Golden eagles, red-tailed hawks, peregrine falcons, and white-throated swifts can be seen in the area.Desert bighorn sheep were reintroduced in the park in 1973. California condors were reintroduced in the Arizona Strip and in 2014 the first successful breeding of condors in the park was confirmed. Nineteen species of bat also live in the area.Boxelder, Fremont cottonwood, maple, and willow dominate riparian plant communities. Animals such as bank beavers, flannel-mouth suckers, gnatcatchers, dippers, canyon wrens, the virgin spinedace, and water striders all make their homes in the riparian zones.

Passage: Shoshone National Forest is an integral part of the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem, which has 1,700 documented species of plants. Since the elevation of the land in the forest ranges from 4,600 to 13,804 ft (1,402 to 4,207 m), which is more than 9,000 ft (2,700 m), the forest has a wide variety of ecosystems. Lower elevations often have sagebrush and grass-dominated vegetation types, while forested areas are dominated by various combinations of tree and shrub species. These include lodgepole pine, which along with Rocky Mountain juniper, and quaking aspen are found at elevations up to 9,000 ft (2,700 m). At higher elevations subalpine fir, Engelmann spruce, whitebark pine and limber pine, are common, each occurring up to timberline. The region above timberline makes up 25 percent of the total acreage of the forest and of that 13 percent is listed as just either barren, rock or ice. The types of plant species is highly dependent on the amount of water available, and trees are more commonly found on higher slopes due to the longer lasting snowfall which keeps the soil moister for a longer time into the summer months. Along lower elevation riparian corridors, cottonwoods and willows are typically dominant. Numerous plant species are endemic to the region including some that are rare. Among them, the whitlow grass, fremont bladderpod, shoshonea, and the north fork Easter daisy provide vivid white and yellow flowers during the spring and summer.Exotic species of flora that are not native to the region include Canada thistle, Musk thistle, Spotted knapweed, Leafy spurge and Yellow toadflax. These non-native plant species are considered noxious, impacting native plant communities and the species that thrive on them. Native species such as the mountain pine beetle are having an enormous negative impact on some tree species. A survey of the forest performed in 2010 indicated that over 1,000,000 acres (400,000 ha) of timberland had been impacted by insects such as the mountain pine beetle, spruce bark beetle and Douglas fir beetle, and that the insects had killed between 25 and 100 percent of the trees in the impacted areas. The forest service is addressing the situation by performing controlled burns, selling dead trees as firewood, timber harvesting and spraying the highest value areas.

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 calculations to be performed on the measurements taken depend on the technology used, since beta counters measure the sample's radioactivity whereas AMS determines the ratio of the three different carbon isotopes in the sample.To determine the age of a sample whose activity has been measured by beta counting, the ratio of its activity to the activity of the standard must be found. To determine this, a blank sample (of old, or dead, carbon) is measured, and a sample of known activity is measured. The additional samples allow errors such as background radiation and systematic errors in the laboratory setup to be detected and corrected for. The most common standard sample material is oxalic acid, such as the HOxII standard, 1,000 lb of which was prepared by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) in 1977 from French beet harvests.The results from AMS testing are in the form of ratios of 12C, 13C, and 14C, which are used to calculate Fm, the "fraction modern". This is defined as the ratio between the 14C/12C ratio in the sample and the 14C/12C ratio in modern carbon, which is in turn defined as the 14C/12C ratio that would have been measured in 1950 had there been no fossil fuel effect.Both beta counting and AMS results have to be corrected for fractionation. This is necessary because different materials of the same age, which because of fractionation have naturally different 14C/12C ratios, will appear to be of different ages because the 14C/12C ratio is taken as the indicator of age. To avoid this, all radiocarbon measurements are converted to the measurement that would have been seen had the sample been made of wood, which has a known δ13C value of −25‰.Once the corrected 14C/12C ratio is known, a "radiocarbon age" is calculated using:

          Age

        =
        −
        8033
        ⋅
        ln

        (
        F
        m
        )

    {\displaystyle {\text{Age}}=-8033\cdot \ln(Fm)}
  The calculation uses 8,033, the mean-life derived from Libby's half-life of 5,568 years, not 8,267, the mean-life derived from the more accurate modern value of 5,730 years. Libby’s value for the half-life is used to maintain consistency with early radiocarbon testing results; calibration curves include a correction for this, so the accuracy of final reported calendar ages is assured.

Passage: The reliability of the results can be improved by lengthening the testing time. For example, if counting beta decays for 250 minutes is enough to give an error of ± 80 years, with 68% confidence, then doubling the counting time to 500 minutes will allow a sample with only half as much 14C to be measured with the same error term of 80 years.Radiocarbon dating is generally limited to dating samples no more than 50,000 years old, as samples older than that have insufficient 14C to be measurable.  Older dates have been obtained by using special sample preparation techniques, large samples, and very long measurement times.  These techniques can allow measurement of dates up to 60,000 and in some cases up to 75,000 years before the present.Radiocarbon dates are generally presented with a range of one standard deviation (usually represented by the Greek letter sigma as 1σ) on either side of the mean. However, a date range of 1σ represents only 68% confidence level, so the true age of the object being measured may lie outside the range of dates quoted. This was demonstrated in 1970 by an experiment run by the British Museum radiocarbon laboratory, in which weekly measurements were taken on the same sample for six months. The results varied widely (though consistently with a normal distribution of errors in the measurements), and included multiple date ranges (of 1σ confidence) that did not overlap with each other. The measurements included one with a range from about 4250 to about 4390 years ago, and another with a range from about 4520 to about 4690.Errors in procedure can also lead to errors in the results. If 1% of the benzene in a modern reference sample accidentally evaporates, scintillation counting will give a radiocarbon age that is too young by about 80 years.

Passage: In 1939, Martin Kamen and Samuel Ruben of the Radiation Laboratory at Berkeley began experiments to determine if any of the elements common in organic matter had isotopes with half-lives long enough to be of value in biomedical research. They synthesized 14C using the laboratory's cyclotron accelerator and soon discovered that the atom's half-life was far longer than had been previously thought.  This was followed by a prediction by Serge A. Korff, then employed at the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia, that the interaction of thermal neutrons with 14N in the upper atmosphere would create 14C. It had previously been thought that 14C would be more likely to be created by deuterons interacting with 13C. At some time during World War II, Willard Libby, who was then at Berkeley, learned of Korff's research and conceived the idea that it might be possible to use radiocarbon for dating.In 1945, Libby moved to the University of Chicago where he began his work on radiocarbon dating. He published a paper in 1946 in which he proposed that the carbon in living matter might include 14C as well as non-radioactive carbon. Libby and several collaborators proceeded to experiment with methane collected from sewage works in Baltimore, and after isotopically enriching their samples they were able to demonstrate that they contained 14C. By contrast, methane created from petroleum showed no radiocarbon activity because of its age. The results were summarized in a paper in Science in 1947, in which the authors commented that their results implied it would be possible to date materials containing carbon of organic origin.Libby and James Arnold proceeded to test the radiocarbon dating theory by analyzing samples with known ages. For example, two samples taken from the tombs of two Egyptian kings, Zoser and Sneferu, independently dated to 2625 BC plus or minus 75 years, were dated by radiocarbon measurement to an average of 2800 BC plus or minus 250 years. These results were published in Science in 1949.  Within 11 years of their announcement, more than 20 radiocarbon dating laboratories had been set up worldwide. In 1960, Libby was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for this work.

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: During the Second World War, by 1943, shortages in food and resources begin to affect all warring nations. In Nazi Germany, conditions harken back to the desperate years in the First World War and shortly after, when ordinary citizens were impoverished and forced to severely curtail their food intake. In Russia, families had to contend with the widespread destruction of their homes and farms. Bomb-scarred Great Britain survived by instituting strict rationing of food and conservation of strategic goods along with efforts to salvage metal in both domestic and industrial programs.
Even in affluent North America, the home front has been transformed by the exigencies of a "total war". While households may face the inevitable shortages, "tightening" the belt"has resulted in industrial production turned to arms manufacturing. Munitions factories are turning out the weapons of war for not only the United States and Canada, but also for faraway battlefields in China and Russia.
The massive amount of over production of goods has western leaders cautioning that the Great Depression was caused by greed and poor planning. In order to avoid repeating the economic crisis, careful planning has to take place. To ensure victory, an all inclusive program of sharing, conservation, salvage and rationing has been seen in every aspect of life. The scrap metal drives are only one of the examples of this new attitude.
With the forces of the New World about to collide with that of the Old World, the Axis powers build up their defences using forced labour. Across Northwest Europe, the "Maginot mentality" begins to take root as the Axis turns its occupied territory into Fortress Europe. The Allies realize that victory over the Axis powers will release the industrial might that was mobilized for war.

Passage: A part of Belarus under Russian rule emerged as the Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic (Byelorussian SSR) in 1919. Soon thereafter it merged to form the Lithuanian-Byelorussian SSR. The contested lands were divided between Poland and the Soviet Union after the war ended in 1921, and the Byelorussian SSR became a founding member of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics in 1922. The western part of modern Belarus remained part of Poland.In the 1920s and 1930s, Soviet agricultural and economic policies, including collectivization and five-year plans for the national economy, led to famine and political repression.
In 1939, Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union invaded and occupied Poland, marking the beginning of World War II. The Soviets invaded and annexed much of eastern Poland, which had been part of the country since the Peace of Riga two decades earlier. Much of the northern section of this area was added to the Byelorussian SSR, and now constitutes West Belarus. The Soviet-controlled Byelorussian People's Council officially took control of the territories, whose populations consisted of a mixture of Poles, Ukrainians, Belarusians and Jews, on 28 October 1939 in Białystok. Nazi Germany invaded the Soviet Union in 1941. The Brest Fortress, which had been annexed in 1939, at this time was subjected to one of the most destructive onslaughts that happened during the war. Statistically, the Byelorussian SSR was the hardest-hit Soviet republic in World War II; it remained in Nazi hands until 1944. During that time, Germany destroyed 209 out of 290 cities in the republic, 85% of the republic's industry, and more than one million buildings. The Nazi Generalplan Ost called for the extermination, expulsion or enslavement of most or all Belarusians for the purpose of providing more living space in the East for Germans.Casualties were estimated to be between 2 and 3 million (about a quarter to one-third of the total population), while the Jewish population of Belarus was devastated during the Holocaust and never recovered. The population of Belarus did not regain its pre-war level until 1971. It was also after this conflict that the final borders of Belarus were set by Stalin when parts of Belarusian territory were given to the recently annexed Lithuania.

Passage: An Army-OSRD council on 25 June 1942 decided to build a pilot plant for plutonium production in Red Gate Woods southwest of Chicago. In July, Nichols arranged for a lease of 1,025 acres (415 ha) from the Cook County Forest Preserve District, and Captain James F. Grafton was appointed Chicago area engineer. It soon became apparent that the scale of operations was too great for the area, and it was decided to build the plant at Oak Ridge, and keep a research and testing facility in Chicago.Delays in establishing the plant in Red Gate Woods led Compton to authorize the Metallurgical Laboratory to construct the first nuclear reactor beneath the bleachers of Stagg Field at the University of Chicago. The reactor required an enormous amount of graphite blocks and uranium pellets. At the time, there was a limited source of pure uranium. Frank Spedding of Iowa State University were able to produce only two short tons of pure uranium. Additional three short tons of uranium metal was supplied by Westinghouse Lamp Plant which was produced in a rush with makeshift process. A large square balloon was constructed by Goodyear Tire to encase the reactor. On 2 December 1942, a team led by Enrico Fermi initiated the first artificial self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction in an experimental reactor known as Chicago Pile-1. The point at which a reaction becomes self-sustaining became known as "going critical". Compton reported the success to Conant in Washington, D.C., by a coded phone call, saying, "The Italian navigator [Fermi] has just landed in the new world."In January 1943, Grafton's successor, Major Arthur V. Peterson, ordered Chicago Pile-1 dismantled and reassembled at Red Gate Woods, as he regarded the operation of a reactor as too hazardous for a densely populated area. At the Argonne site, Chicago Pile-3, the first heavy water reactor, went critical on 15 May 1944. After the war, the operations that remained at Red Gate moved to the new site of the Argonne National Laboratory about 6 miles (9.7 km) 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: Through the years, Reznor has invited many prominent musicians on stage with his band to perform material outside the usual range of Nine Inch Nails songs:
During Lollapalooza '91 Jane's Addiction members Dave Navarro and Eric Avery played guitars alongside Gibby Haynes and Ice-T for the last song of the band's set, "Head Like a Hole".
In early 1995, Adam Ant and Marco Pirroni joined Nine Inch Nails on stage to perform "Physical" and other Adam and the Ants songs.
During the Dissonance tour, Nine Inch Nails co-headlined with David Bowie, whose own contemporary tour was called the Outside Tour.  Throughout the tour, Nine Inch Nails would perform first and segue into Bowie's band.  The two bands would play a mixture of Nine Inch Nails and David Bowie songs.  Nine Inch Nails would eventually leave the stage and Bowie and his band would continue with their own set.
Marilyn Manson appeared on stage at during a concert at Madison Square Garden in 2000 to sing "Starfuckers, Inc." and "The Beautiful People".  This performance is featured as an Easter Egg in the And All That Could Have Been DVD.
During the Live: With Teeth amphitheater tour, Nine Inch Nails and Peter Murphy of Bauhaus performed the Pere Ubu song "Final Solution", which was also a solo hit for Murphy. For the last show, they collaborated to cover Joy Division's "Dead Souls", which Nine Inch Nails has regularly played since 1994.  Also during this tour, Reznor, Murphy, and other musicians performed four unique sets of their favorite songs on radio stations around the country.
Ben Weinman and Greg Puciato of The Dillinger Escape Plan joined Nine Inch Nails on stage during the encore of their performance at the Adelaide leg of the 2009 Soundwave Festival to perform Wish and joined again on the Perth leg with the full band. On June 15, 2009 The Dillinger Escape Plan joined Nine Inch Nails on stage at Bonnaroo performing "Wish".
During the Wave Goodbye tour in 2009 Nine Inch Nails invited many special guests to perform with them.  The guest appearances included Gary Numan, Peter Murphy, Atticus Ross, Danny Lohner, Mike Garson, Dave Navarro, Eric Avery, Saul Williams, The Dillinger Escape Plan, and Health.

Passage: After the 1994 release of The Downward Spiral, the live band embarked on the Self-Destruct tour in support of the album. Chris Vrenna and James Woolley performed drums and keyboards respectively, Robin Finck replaced Richard Patrick on guitar and bassist Danny Lohner was added to the line-up. The stage set-up consisted of dirty curtains which would be pulled down for visuals shown during songs such as "Hurt". The back of the stage was littered with darker and standing lights, along with very little actual ones. The tour debuted the band's grungy and messy image in which they would come out in ragged clothes slathered in corn starch. The concerts were violent and chaotic, with band members often injuring themselves. They would frequently destroy their instruments at the end of concerts, attack each other, and stage-dive into the crowd.The tour included a set at Woodstock '94 broadcast on Pay-per-view and seen in as many as 24 million homes. The band being covered in mud was a result of pre-concert backstage play, contrary to the belief that it was an attention-grabbing ploy, thus making it difficult for Reznor to navigate the stage: Reznor pushed Lohner into the mud pit as the concert began and saw mud from his hair going into his eyes while performing. Nine Inch Nails was widely proclaimed to have "stolen the show" from its popular contemporaries, mostly classic rock bands, and its fan base expanded. The band received considerable mainstream success thereafter, performing with significantly higher production values and the addition of various theatrical visual elements. Its performance of "Happiness in Slavery" from the Woodstock concert earned the group a Grammy Award for Best Metal Performance in 1995. Entertainment Weekly commented about the band's Woodstock '94 performance: "Reznor unstrings rock to its horrifying, melodramatic core--an experience as draining as it is exhilarating". Despite this acclaim, Reznor attributed his dislike of the concert to its technical difficulties.

Passage: In 1987, Trent Reznor played keyboard in a Cleveland, Ohio band called the Exotic Birds, then managed by John Malm Jr. Reznor and Malm became friends, and when Reznor left the Exotic Birds to work on music of his own, Malm informally became his manager. At the time, Reznor was employed as an assistant engineer and janitor at Right Track Studios,  in Cleveland; he asked studio owner Bart Koster for permission to record some demos of his own material for free during unused studio time. Koster agreed and allowed Reznor to use it whenever it was empty, commenting that it cost him "just a little wear on [his] tape heads". While completing the early recordings, Reznor was unable to find a band that could articulate the material as he desired. Instead, inspired by Prince, Reznor played all the instruments, except drums, himself. This role remains Reznor's on most of the band's studio recordings, though he has occasionally involved other musicians and assistants. Nine Inch Nails' debut was at the Phantasy Theater in Lakewood, Ohio on October 21, 1988 as part of the Pretty Hate Machine Tour Series. In 1988, after playing its first shows supporting Skinny Puppy, Reznor's ambition for Nine Inch Nails was to release one 12-inch single on a small European label. Several labels responded favorably to the demo material and Reznor signed with TVT Records. Nine selections from the Right Track demos recorded live in November 1988, collectively known as Purest Feeling, were later released in revised form on the band's first full-length studio release, Pretty Hate Machine (1989). The overall sound on Purest Feeling is lighter than that of Pretty Hate Machine; several songs contain more live drumming and guitar work throughout, as well as a heavier use of samples from films.Reznor coined the name "Nine Inch Nails" because it "abbreviated easily", rather than for "any literal meaning". Other rumored explanations have circulated, alleging that Reznor chose to reference Jesus' crucifixion with nine-inch spikes, or Freddy Krueger's nine-inch fingernails. The English letters NIN are also noted for their resemblance to the modern Hebrew characters of the Tetragrammaton.  The Nine Inch Nails' logo, which consists of the letters [NIИ] set inside a border, was designed by Reznor and Gary Talpas, and first appeared on the music video for Nine Inch Nails' debut single, "Down in It", and was inspired by Tibor Kalman's typography on the Talking Heads album Remain in Light. Talpas, a native of Cleveland, would continue to design Nine Inch Nails packaging art until 1997.

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 beautiful English socialite, Diana Standing, and her wealthy fiancé Gerald Hume arrive at the train station in Cairo, Egypt, where they plan to be married. Although her mother was Egyptian, Diana considers herself part of the British upper class. At the station, she is noticed by Jamil El Shehab, a handsome good-natured Egyptian dragoman who enjoys romancing women tourists and freeing them from some of their jewelry. Jamil is immediately captivated by Diana and soon talks his way into becoming her official guide and driver in Egypt.
While touring the Pyramids, Jamil manages to be alone with Diana and romances her with love songs. Meanwhile, Diana is also being wooed by Pasha Achmed, her fiancé's unscrupulous Egyptian business associate. In order to arrange to be alone with Diana, Pasha persuades Gerald to leave Cairo and inspect the aqueduct they are building together. When Jamil learns of the deception, he blackmails his countryman to remain silent. Later Jamil uses his position as a servant to enter Diana's hotel bedroom, and kisses her in a moment of passion. Although she briefly returns his kiss, Diana angrily fires him.
Soon after, she and Gerald set out on a caravan across the desert with a new guide. Undaunted by Diana's rejection, Jamil follows and soon replaces the new guide. That night, Jamil's romantic singing has its effect on Diana, who is drawn into his arms again. When she realizes what is happening, she is outraged and strikes Jamil with a whip. On their way back to Cairo, however, Jamil sends the rest of the caravan on one route and tricks Diana into riding to Pasha's oasis retreat, where she is treated like royalty. When Pasha arrives, Jamil lies to him, telling him that Diana paid him to bring her to Pasha. When Pasha forces himself on her, she cries out for Jamil to save her, which he does, and the two ride off together in the night.

Passage: A young doctor, Robert Merivel, enters the service of King Charles II of England after having saved the King's favorite spaniel. Merivel finds himself enjoying a life of debauched pleasure and popularity at court, until the King informs him that he has arranged for Merivel to wed Celia, the King's favorite mistress. The purpose of the arranged marriage is to fool another of the King's mistresses. Merivel is given an estate named Bidnold in Suffolk, and Celia is installed in a house in Kew where the king can visit her secretly. Merivel lives a life of debauchery there, but also finds pleasure in restoring the house to its former beauty with the support of Will Gates, the man who runs the estate. However, things become complicated when Merivel breaks the King's cardinal rule by falling in love with Celia. Elias Finn, a painter commissioned by the King to paint a portrait of Celia, tricks Merivel into revealing his romantic feelings for Celia, who does not return Merivel's affections. After finding out about Merivel's romantic feelings toward Celia, the King banishes him from court back to his life as a physician.
Merivel rejoins his old friend, John Pearce, who has opened a Quaker sanitarium. There, Merivel meets Katherine, a troubled young woman whose husband walked out on her after their daughter drowned in the river. Merivel and Katherine become lovers. Pearce falls fatally ill with consumption, and while Merivel is tending to his dying friend, they discover that Katherine is pregnant with Merivel's child. After the death of Pearce, Merivel and Katherine leave.
The pair returns to London just as the Great Plague has hit. Katherine gives birth to a daughter, Margaret, via Caesarean section, but dies in the process as there is no way to ward off infection once the body has been cut open. In her dying moments, Merivel promises Katherine that he will care for Margaret, and that he loves Katherine.

Passage: British couple Nigel and Fiona Dobson are on a Mediterranean cruise ship to Istanbul en route to India. They encounter a beautiful French woman, Mimi, and that night Nigel meets her while dancing alone in the ship's bar. Later Nigel meets her much older and disabled American husband Oscar, who is acerbic and cynical, having been jaded and a failure as a writer.
Oscar invites Nigel to his cabin where he tells Nigel in great detail how he and Mimi first met on a bus in Paris and fell passionately in love. Nigel relates all to Fiona. Both are appalled by Oscar's exhibitionism, but Nigel is also fascinated by Mimi, who provokes him. Later, Oscar narrates how they explored bondage, sadomasochism, and voyeurism. As a contrast to their sexual adventurousness, we see Nigel and Fiona meeting a distinguished Indian gentleman, Mr. Singh, who is traveling with his little daughter Amrita.
Invited by Mimi, Nigel, escaping from a bridge game, goes to meet her in her cabin, but it turns out she and Oscar have played a joke on him. Nigel wants to leave, but another session unfolds, with Oscar describing how their hate/love relationship developed. Bored, he tried to break up, but Mimi begged him to let her live with him under any conditions. He complied, but started to explore sadistic fantasies at her expense, humiliating her in public. When Mimi became pregnant, he made her have an abortion, saying that he would be a terrible father. When he visited her in hospital, he was shocked by her condition and almost relented in his attempts to drive her away. He promised her a holiday in the Caribbean, but he got off the plane just before take off. Mimi departed alone, crying.

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: Jean Sibelius's Symphony No. 8 was his final major compositional project, occupying him intermittently from the mid-1920s until around 1938, though he never published it. During this time Sibelius was at the peak of his fame, a national figure in his native Finland and a composer of international stature. A fair copy of at least the first movement was made, but how much of the Eighth Symphony was completed is unknown. Sibelius repeatedly refused to release it for performance, though he continued to assert that he was working on it even after he had, according to later reports from his family, burned the score and associated material, probably in 1945.
Much of Sibelius's reputation, during his lifetime and subsequently, derived from his work as a symphonist. His Seventh Symphony of 1924 has been widely recognised as a landmark in the development of symphonic form, and at the time there was no reason to suppose that the flow of innovative orchestral works would not continue. However, after the symphonic poem Tapiola, completed in 1926, his output was confined to relatively minor pieces and revisions to earlier works. During the 1930s the Eighth Symphony's premiere was promised to Serge Koussevitzky and the Boston Symphony Orchestra on several occasions, but as each scheduled date approached Sibelius demurred, claiming that the work was not ready for performance. Similar promises made to the British conductor Basil Cameron and to the Finnish Georg Schnéevoigt likewise proved illusory. It is thought that Sibelius's perfectionism and exalted reputation prevented him ever completing the symphony to his satisfaction; he wanted it to be even better than his Seventh.
After Sibelius's death in 1957, news of the Eighth Symphony's destruction was made public, and it was assumed that the work had disappeared forever. But in the 1990s, when the composer's many notebooks and sketches were being catalogued, scholars first raised the possibility that fragments of the music for the lost symphony might have survived. Since then, several short manuscript sketches have been tentatively identified with the Eighth, three of which (comprising less than three minutes of music) were recorded by the Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra in 2011. While a few musicologists have speculated that, if further fragments can be identified, it may be possible to reconstruct the entire work, others have suggested that this is unlikely given the ambiguity of the extant material. The propriety of publicly performing music that Sibelius himself had rejected has also been questioned.

Passage: In the 1930s, Walton's relationship with the Sitwells became less close. He had love affairs and new friendships that drew him out of their orbit. His first long affair was with Imma von Doernberg, the young widow of a German baron. She and Walton met in the late 1920s and they were together until 1934, when she left him. His later affair with Alice, Viscountess Wimborne (born 1880), which lasted from 1934 until her death in April 1948, caused a wider breach between Walton and the Sitwells, as she disliked them as much as they disliked her. By the 1930s, Walton was earning enough from composing to allow him financial independence for the first time. A legacy from a musical benefactress in 1931 further enhanced his finances, and in 1934 he left the Sitwells' house and bought a house in Belgravia.Walton's first major composition after Belshazzar's Feast was his First Symphony. It was not written to a commission, and Walton worked slowly on the score from late 1931 until he completed it in 1935. He had composed the first three of the four movements by the end of 1933 and promised the premiere to the conductor Hamilton Harty. Walton then found himself unable to complete the work. The end of his affair with Imma von Doernberg coincided with, and may have contributed to, a sudden and persistent writer's block. Harty persuaded Walton to let him perform the three existing movements, which he premiered in December 1934 with the London Symphony Orchestra. During 1934 Walton interrupted work on the symphony to compose his first film music, for Paul Czinner's Escape Me Never (1934), for which he was paid £300.After a break of eight months, Walton resumed work on the symphony and completed it in 1935. Harty and the BBC Symphony Orchestra gave the premiere of the completed piece in November of that year. The symphony aroused international interest. The leading continental conductors Wilhelm Furtwängler and Willem Mengelberg sent for copies of the score, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra premiered the work in the US under Harty, Eugene Ormandy and the Philadelphia Orchestra gave the New York premiere, and the young George Szell conducted the symphony in Australia.

Passage: Various reports appeared to confirm that the symphony's release was imminent. The Finnish composer Leevi Madetoja mentioned in 1934 that the work was virtually complete; an article by the Swedish journalist Kurt Nordfors indicated that two movements were complete and the rest sketched out. As pressure to produce the symphony increased, Sibelius became increasingly withdrawn and unwilling to discuss his progress. In December 1935, during an interview in connection with his 70th birthday celebrations, he indicated that he had discarded a whole year's work; this pointed to a full-scale revision of the Eighth. However, when The Times's correspondent asked for details of the work's progress Sibelius became irritated. He was furious when Downes continued to pester him for information, on one occasion shouting "Ich kann nicht!" ("I cannot!").A receipt found among Sibelius's papers refers to a "Symphonie" being bound by the firm of Weilin & Göös in August 1938. While it is not established that this transaction related to the Eighth, the Sibelius scholar Kari Kilpeläinen points out that none of the earlier symphony scores carry the unnumbered heading "Symphonie", and asks: "Could he have omitted the number to prevent news of the now completed Eighth from spreading? Or did he not give the work a number at all, because he was not satisfied with it?" The composer's daughter Katarina spoke of the self-doubt that afflicted her father at this time, aggravated by the continuing expectations and fuss that surrounded the Eighth Symphony. "He wanted it to be better than the other symphonies. Finally it became a burden, even though so much of it had already been written down. In the end I don't know whether he would have accepted what he had written."Sibelius remained in Finland during the Winter War of 1939–40, despite offers of asylum in the United States. After the war ended in March 1940 he moved with his family to an apartment on Kammiokatu (later renamed Sibeliuksenkatu or 'Sibelius Street' in his honour) in the Töölö district of Helsinki, where they remained for a year. During that time they were visited by the pianist Martti Paavola, who was able to examine the contents of Sibelius's safe. Paavola later reported to his pupil Einar Englund that among the music kept there was a symphony, "most likely the Eighth".

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: "What You Waiting For?" was released as the lead single from Love. Angel. Music. Baby. on September 28, 2004. The single peaked at number 47 on the Billboard Hot 100, and was commercially successful overseas, topping the chart in Australia and reaching the top 10 in several countries including France, Netherlands, New Zealand, Sweden, and the United Kingdom. "Rich Girl", featuring Eve, was released as the album's second single on December 14, 2004, becoming Stefani's first top-10 entry as a solo artist in the US when it peaked at number seven on the Billboard Hot 100. Elsewhere, the song performed equally as successfully as "What You Waiting For?". "Hollaback Girl" was released as the third single on March 15, 2005. It became the album's best-selling and most popular single, while also becoming the first single to sell one million digital copies in the US. The song topped the Billboard Hot 100 within six weeks of its release, earning Stefani her first number-one single on the chart."Cool" was released as the fourth single from the album on July 5, 2005. The song fared moderately on the charts, reaching the top 10 in Australia and New Zealand, as well as the top 20 in Denmark, Germany, Ireland, Norway, the UK and the US. "Luxurious" was released as the fifth single in October 2005. The single version features rapper Slim Thug. The song was less successful than the previous singles from the album, peaking at number 21 on the Billboard Hot 100. "Crash" was not originally planned as a single, but due to Stefani's pregnancy, her second solo album was delayed, and the song was released as the sixth and final single from the album on January 24, 2006.

Passage: The first single released from Tragic Kingdom was "Just a Girl", which details Gwen Stefani's exasperation with female stereotypes and her father's concerned reaction to her driving home late from her boyfriend's house. It peaked at number 23 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart and number 10 on the Modern Rock Tracks chart. The song also charted on the UK Singles Chart, where its original release peaked at number 38 and its reissue at number three. The second single was "Spiderwebs", written about an uninterested woman who is trying to avoid the constant phone calls of a persistent man. It reached number five on the Billboard Modern Rock Tracks chart, number 11 on the Billboard Top 40 Mainstream chart, and number 16 on the UK Singles Chart.The third single was "Don't Speak", a ballad about the breakup of Stefani and Kanal's relationship. It peaked at number one on the Billboard Hot 100 Airplay, and maintained that position for 16 consecutive weeks, a record at the time, although it was broken in 1998 by the Goo Goo Dolls' "Iris" with 18 weeks. The song was not eligible to chart on the Billboard Hot 100 because no commercial single was released, which was a requirement at the time. The song also peaked at number two on the Modern Rock Tracks chart, at number six on the Adult Contemporary chart, at number one on the Adult Top 40 chart, and at number nine on the Rhythmic Top 40 chart. The song also appeared on several international charts, reaching number one in Australia, Belgium, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom, number two in Austria and Germany, and number four in Finland and France."Excuse Me Mr." and "Sunday Morning" were released as the album's fourth and fifth singles, respectively. "Excuse Me Mr." reached number 17 on the Billboard Modern Rock Tracks chart and number 11 in New Zealand. "Sunday Morning" peaked at number 35 on the Billboard Top 40 Mainstream chart, number 21 in Australia, number 42 in New Zealand, and number 55 in Sweden. Composing the song began when Kanal was having a fight with Stefani, then his girlfriend, through the bathroom door of his parents' house in Yorba Linda, California. Stefani later changed the lyrics to discuss dealing with her breakup with Kanal. "Happy Now?" was released as the album's sixth single on September 23, 1997, but failed to chart anywhere. "Hey You!" was released as the seventh and final single from Tragic Kingdom; it peaked at number 51 on the Dutch Single Top 100. Despite being a Dutch-only single, a Sophie Muller-directed music video was filmed to promote the single.

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: Society throughout Europe was disturbed by the dislocations caused by the Black Death. Lands that had been marginally productive were abandoned, as the survivors were able to acquire more fertile areas. Although serfdom declined in Western Europe it became more common in Eastern Europe, as landlords imposed it on those of their tenants who had previously been free. Most peasants in Western Europe managed to change the work they had previously owed to their landlords into cash rents. The percentage of serfs amongst the peasantry declined from a high of 90 to closer to 50 percent by the end of the period. Landlords also became more conscious of common interests with other landholders, and they joined together to extort privileges from their governments. Partly at the urging of landlords, governments attempted to legislate a return to the economic conditions that existed before the Black Death. Non-clergy became increasingly literate, and urban populations began to imitate the nobility's interest in chivalry.Jewish communities were expelled from England in 1290 and from France in 1306. Although some were allowed back into France, most were not, and many Jews emigrated eastwards, settling in Poland and Hungary. The Jews were expelled from Spain in 1492, and dispersed to Turkey, France, Italy, and Holland. The rise of banking in Italy during the 13th century continued throughout the 14th century, fuelled partly by the increasing warfare of the period and the needs of the papacy to move money between kingdoms. Many banking firms loaned money to royalty, at great risk, as some were bankrupted when kings defaulted on their loans.

Passage: The first years of the 14th century were marked by famines, culminating in the Great Famine of 1315–17. The causes of the Great Famine included the slow transition from the Medieval Warm Period to the Little Ice Age, which left the population vulnerable when bad weather caused crop failures. The years 1313–14 and 1317–21 were excessively rainy throughout Europe, resulting in widespread crop failures. The climate change—which resulted in a declining average annual temperature for Europe during the 14th century—was accompanied by an economic downturn.
These troubles were followed in 1347 by the Black Death, a pandemic that spread throughout Europe during the following three years. The death toll was probably about 35 million people in Europe, about one-third of the population. Towns were especially hard-hit because of their crowded conditions. Large areas of land were left sparsely inhabited, and in some places fields were left unworked. Wages rose as landlords sought to entice the reduced number of available workers to their fields. Further problems were lower rents and lower demand for food, both of which cut into agricultural income. Urban workers also felt that they had a right to greater earnings, and popular uprisings broke out across Europe. Among the uprisings were the jacquerie in France, the Peasants' Revolt in England, and revolts in the cities of Florence in Italy and Ghent and Bruges in Flanders. The trauma of the plague led to an increased piety throughout Europe, manifested by the foundation of new charities, the self-mortification of the flagellants, and the scapegoating of Jews. Conditions were further unsettled by the return of the plague throughout the rest of the 14th century; it continued to strike Europe periodically during the rest of the Middle Ages.

Passage: Henry III's reign was in crisis in 1258. He had recently suffered defeat in Wales, there were agricultural problems leading to a famine, and relations with the pope were worsening. Discontent amongst England's magnates led Henry to promise reform, but under continued pressure his authority disintegrated. A royal council of fifteen magnates was formed in June that year, and the rule of the country transferred from the king to the council. With foreign help Henry's reign was restored in 1261 as the council were reluctant to start a civil war. Simon de Montfort, Earl of Leicester, raised a rebellion. In 1264 civil war broke out between those loyal to the king and the baronial forces led by de Montfort.Rochester's constable in 1264, Roger de Leybourne, held the castle in support of Henry. John de Warenne, Earl of Surrey, was the garrison's co-commander. A baronial army led by Gilbert de Clare, Earl of Hertford, laid siege to the castle on 17 April that year. Having marched from the earl's castle to Tonbridge the army attacked from the Rochester side of the river, either the south or west. While the army advanced towards the city the royalist garrison set alight the suburbs. The king's hall within the castle was also burned down, although it is unclear why. An army under Simon de Montfort marched from London with the intention of attacking the city from another direction. The earl's first two attempts to cross the Medway were fought back, but he was successful on 18 April, Good Friday. The method used is uncertain, although it involved a fire-ship. The smoke may have been used as cover for the rebels, or the ship may have been used to burn the bridge while the army travelled by water. In a co-ordinated attack that had been pre-arranged, the armies of de Montfort and de Clare attacked the city. They entered Rochester in the evening and that night the cathedral was raided. The following day the rebels captured the castle's outer enclosure and the royal garrison retreated to the keep. Because the next day was Easter Sunday there was no fighting, though hostilities resumed on the Monday. Siege engines were set up and targeted the keep. As in 1215 the keep proved resistant to missiles, and after a week had not succumbed. According to one contemporary source, the besiegers were about to dig a mine beneath the tower, but the siege was abandoned on 26 April when the earls received news of a relief force led by Henry III and his son, Prince Edward.

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.