Question: Passage: Geoffrey of Monmouth's Historia Regum Britanniae, completed c. 1138, contains the first narrative account of Arthur's life. This work is an imaginative and fanciful account of British kings from the legendary Trojan exile Brutus to the 7th-century Welsh king Cadwallader. Geoffrey places Arthur in the same post-Roman period as do Historia Brittonum and Annales Cambriae. He incorporates Arthur's father Uther Pendragon, his magician advisor Merlin, and the story of Arthur's conception, in which Uther, disguised as his enemy Gorlois by Merlin's magic, sleeps with Gorlois's wife Igerna (Igraine) at Tintagel, and she conceives Arthur. On Uther's death, the fifteen-year-old Arthur succeeds him as King of Britain and fights a series of battles, similar to those in the Historia Brittonum, culminating in the Battle of Bath. He then defeats the Picts and Scots before creating an Arthurian empire through his conquests of Ireland, Iceland and the Orkney Islands. After twelve years of peace, Arthur sets out to expand his empire once more, taking control of Norway, Denmark and Gaul. Gaul is still held by the Roman Empire when it is conquered, and Arthur's victory leads to a further confrontation with Rome. Arthur and his warriors, including Kaius (Kay), Beduerus (Bedivere) and Gualguanus (Gawain), defeat the Roman emperor Lucius Tiberius in Gaul but, as he prepares to march on Rome, Arthur hears that his nephew Modredus (Mordred)—whom he had left in charge of Britain—has married his wife Guenhuuara (Guinevere) and seized the throne. Arthur returns to Britain and defeats and kills Modredus on the river Camblam in Cornwall, but he is mortally wounded. He hands the crown to his kinsman Constantine and is taken to the isle of Avalon to be healed of his wounds, never to be seen again.

Passage: King Arthur was a legendary British leader who, according to medieval histories and romances, led the defence of Britain against Saxon invaders in the late 5th and early 6th centuries. The details of Arthur's story are mainly composed of folklore and literary invention, and his historical existence is debated and disputed by modern historians. The sparse historical background of Arthur is gleaned from various sources, including the Annales Cambriae, the Historia Brittonum, and the writings of Gildas. Arthur's name also occurs in early poetic sources such as Y Gododdin.Arthur is a central figure in the legends making up the Matter of Britain. The legendary Arthur developed as a figure of international interest largely through the popularity of Geoffrey of Monmouth's fanciful and imaginative 12th-century Historia Regum Britanniae (History of the Kings of Britain). In some Welsh and Breton tales and poems that date from before this work, Arthur appears either as a great warrior defending Britain from human and supernatural enemies or as a magical figure of folklore, sometimes associated with the Welsh otherworld Annwn. How much of Geoffrey's Historia (completed in 1138) was adapted from such earlier sources, rather than invented by Geoffrey himself, is unknown.
Although the themes, events and characters of the Arthurian legend varied widely from text to text, and there is no one canonical version, Geoffrey's version of events often served as the starting point for later stories. Geoffrey depicted Arthur as a king of Britain who defeated the Saxons and established a vast empire. Many elements and incidents that are now an integral part of the Arthurian story appear in Geoffrey's Historia, including Arthur's father Uther Pendragon, the magician Merlin, Arthur's wife Guinevere, the sword Excalibur, Arthur's conception at Tintagel, his final battle against Mordred at Camlann, and final rest in Avalon. The 12th-century French writer Chrétien de Troyes, who added Lancelot and the Holy Grail to the story, began the genre of Arthurian romance that became a significant strand of medieval literature. In these French stories, the narrative focus often shifts from King Arthur himself to other characters, such as various Knights of the Round Table.
Arthurian literature thrived during the Middle Ages but waned in the centuries that followed until it experienced a major resurgence in the 19th century. In the 21st century, the legend lives on, not only in literature but also in adaptations for theatre, film, television, comics and other media.

Passage: How much of this narrative was Geoffrey's own invention is open to debate. He seems to have made use of the list of Arthur's twelve battles against the Saxons found in the 9th-century Historia Brittonum, along with the battle of Camlann from the Annales Cambriae and the idea that Arthur was still alive. Arthur's status as the king of all Britain seems to be borrowed from pre-Galfridian tradition, being found in Culhwch and Olwen, the Welsh Triads, and the saints' lives. Finally, Geoffrey borrowed many of the names for Arthur's possessions, close family, and companions from the pre-Galfridian Welsh tradition, including Kaius (Cei), Beduerus (Bedwyr), Guenhuuara (Gwenhwyfar), Uther (Uthyr) and perhaps also Caliburnus (Caledfwlch), the latter becoming Excalibur in subsequent Arthurian tales. However, while names, key events, and titles may have been borrowed, Brynley Roberts has argued that "the Arthurian section is Geoffrey's literary creation and it owes nothing to prior narrative." Geoffrey makes the Welsh Medraut into the villainous Modredus, but there is no trace of such a negative character for this figure in Welsh sources until the 16th century. There have been relatively few modern attempts to challenge the notion that the Historia Regum Britanniae is primarily Geoffrey's own work, with scholarly opinion often echoing William of Newburgh's late-12th-century comment that Geoffrey "made up" his narrative, perhaps through an "inordinate love of lying". Geoffrey Ashe is one dissenter from this view, believing that Geoffrey's narrative is partially derived from a lost source telling of the deeds of a 5th-century British king named Riotamus, this figure being the original Arthur, although historians and Celticists have been reluctant to follow Ashe in his conclusions.Whatever his sources may have been, the immense popularity of Geoffrey's Historia Regum Britanniae cannot be denied. Well over 200 manuscript copies of Geoffrey's Latin work are known to have survived, as well as translations into other languages. For example, 60 manuscripts are extant containing the Brut y Brenhinedd, Welsh-language versions of the Historia, the earliest of which were created in the 13th century. The old notion that some of these Welsh versions actually underlie Geoffrey's Historia, advanced by antiquarians such as the 18th-century Lewis Morris, has long since been discounted in academic circles. As a result of this popularity, Geoffrey's Historia Regum Britanniae was enormously influential on the later medieval development of the Arthurian legend. While it was not the only creative force behind Arthurian romance, many of its elements were borrowed and developed (e.g., Merlin and the final fate of Arthur), and it provided the historical framework into which the romancers' tales of magical and wonderful adventures were inserted.

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 unique and native form of poetic literature in Kannada called Vachanas developed during this time. They were written by mystics, who expressed their devotion to God in simple poems that could appeal to the masses. Basavanna, Akka Mahadevi, Allama Prabhu, Channabasavanna and Siddharama are the best known among them.In Sanskrit, a well-known poem (Mahakavya) in 18 cantos called Vikramankadeva Charita by Kashmiri poet Bilhana recounts in epic style the life and achievements of his patron king Vikramaditya VI. The work narrates the episode of Vikramaditya VI's accession to the Chalukya throne after overthrowing his elder brother Someshvara II. The great Indian mathematician Bhāskara II (born c.1114) flourished during this time. From his own account in his famous work Siddhanta Siromani (c. 1150, comprising the Lilavati, Bijaganita on algebra, Goladhaya on the celestial globe and Grahaganita on planets) Bijjada Bida (modern Bijapur) was his native place.Manasollasa or Abhilashitartha Chintamani by king Someshvara III (1129) was a Sanskrit work intended for all sections of society. This is an example of an early encyclopedia in Sanskrit covering many subjects including medicine, magic, veterinary science, valuing of precious stones and pearls, fortifications, painting, music, games, amusements etc. While the book does not give any of dealt topics particular hierarchy of importance, it serves as a landmark in understanding the state of knowledge in those subjects at that time. Someshwara III also authored a biography of his famous father Vikramaditya VI called Vikraman-Kabhyudaya. The text is a historical prose narrative which also includes a graphic description of the geography and people of Karnataka.A Sanskrit scholar Vijnaneshwara became famous in the field of legal literature for his Mitakshara, in the court of Vikramaditya VI. Perhaps the most acknowledged work in that field, Mitakshara is a treatise on law (commentary on Yajnavalkya) based on earlier writings and has found acceptance in most parts of modern India. An Englishman Colebrooke later translated into English the section on inheritance giving it currency in the British Indian court system. Some important literary works of the time related to music and musical instruments were Sangita Chudamani, Sangita Samayasara and Sangita Ratnakara.

Passage: Pulakeshin II conquered the eastern Deccan, corresponding to the coastal districts of modern Andhra Pradesh in 616, defeating the remnants of the Vishnukundina kingdom. He appointed his brother Kubja Vishnuvardhana as Viceroy in 621. Thus the Eastern Chalukyas were originally of Kannada stock. After the death of Pulakeshin II, the Vengi Viceroyalty developed into an independent kingdom and included the region between Nellore and Visakhapatnam.After the decline of the Badami Chalukya empire in the mid-8th century, territorial disputes flared up between the Rashtrakutas, the new rulers of the western deccan, and the Eastern Chalukyas. For much of the next two centuries, the Eastern Chalukyas had to accept subordination towards the Rashtrakutas. Apart from a rare military success, such as the one by Vijayaditya II(c.808–847), it was only during the rule of Bhima I (c.892–921) that these Chalukyas were able to celebrate a measure of independence. After the death of Bhima I, the Andhra region once again saw succession disputes and interference in Vengi affairs by the Rashtrakutas.The fortunes of the Eastern Chalukyas took a turn around 1000. Danarnava, their king, was killed in battle in 973 by the Telugu Choda King Bhima who then imposed his rule over the region for twenty-seven years. During this time, Danarnava's two sons took refuge in the Chola kingdom. Choda Bhima's invasion of Tondaimandalam, a Chola territory, and his subsequent death on the battlefield opened up a new era in Chola–Chalukya relations. Saktivarman I, the elder son of Danarnava was crowned as the ruler of Vengi in 1000, though under the control of king Rajaraja Chola I. This new relationship between the Cholas and the coastal Andhra kingdom was unacceptable to the Western Chalukyas, who had by then replaced the Rashtrakutas as the main power in the western Deccan. The Western Chalukyas sought to brook the growing Chola influence in the Vengi region but were unsuccessful.Initially, the Eastern Chalukyas had encouraged Kannada language and literature, though, after a period of time, local factors took over and they gave importance to Telugu language. Telugu literature owes its growth to the Eastern Chalukyas.

Passage: The Kannada poets and scholars of the empire produced important writings supporting the Vaishnava Bhakti movement heralded by the Haridasas (devotees of Vishnu), Brahminical and Veerashaiva (Lingayatism) literature. The Haridasa poets celebrated their devotion through songs called Devaranama (lyrical poems) in the native meters of Sangatya (quatrain), Suladi (beat based), Ugabhoga (melody based) and Mundige (cryptic). Their inspirations were the teachings of Madhvacharya and Vyasatirtha. Purandaradasa and Kanakadasa are considered the foremost among many Dasas (devotees) by virtue of their immense contribution. Kumara Vyasa, the most notable of Brahmin scholars wrote Gadugina Bharata, a translation of the epic Mahabharata. This work marks a transition of Kannada literature from old Kannada to modern Kannada. Chamarasa was a famous Veerashaiva scholar and poet who had many debates with Vaishnava scholars in the court of Devaraya II. His Prabhulinga Leele, later translated into Telugu and Tamil, was a eulogy of Saint Allama Prabhu (the saint was considered an incarnation of Lord Ganapathi while Parvati took the form of a princess of Banavasi).At this peak of Telugu literature, the most famous writing in the Prabandha style was Manucharitamu. King Krishnadevaraya was an accomplished Telugu scholar and wrote the celebrated Amuktamalyada. Amuktamalyada ("One who wears and gives away garlands") narrates the story of the wedding of the god Vishnu to Andal, the Tamil Alvar saint poet and the daughter of Periyalvar at Srirangam. In his court were eight famous scholars regarded as the pillars (Ashtadiggajas) of the literary assembly. The most famous among them were Allasani Peddana who held the honorific Andhrakavitapitamaha (lit, "father of Telugu poetry") and Tenali Ramakrishna, the court jester who authored several notable works. The other six poets were Nandi Thimmana (Mukku Timmana), Ayyalaraju Ramabhadra, Madayyagari Mallana, Bhattu Murthi (Ramaraja Bhushana), Pingali Surana, and Dhurjati. This was the age of Srinatha, the greatest of all Telugu poets of the time. He wrote books such as Marutratcharitamu and Salivahana-sapta-sati. He was patronised by King Devaraya II and enjoyed the same status as important ministers in the court.Though much of the Tamil literature from this period came from Tamil speaking regions ruled by the feudatory Pandya who gave particular attention on the cultivation of Tamil literature, some poets were patronised by the Vijayanagara kings. Svarupananda Desikar wrote an anthology of 2824 verses, Sivaprakasap-perundirattu, on the Advaita philosophy. His pupil the ascetic, Tattuvarayar, wrote a shorter anthology, Kurundirattu, that contained about half the number of verses. Krishnadevaraya patronised the Tamil Vaishnava poet Haridasa whose Irusamaya Vilakkam was an exposition of the two Hindu systems, Vaishnava and Shaiva, with a preference for the former.Notable among secular writings on music and medicine were Vidyaranya's Sangitsara, Praudha Raya's Ratiratnapradipika, Sayana's Ayurveda Sudhanidhi and Lakshmana Pandita's Vaidyarajavallabham. The Kerala school of astronomy and mathematics flourished during this period under such well known scholars as Madhava (c. 1340–1425) who made important contributions to Trigonometery and Calculus, and Nilakantha Somayaji (c. 1444–1545) who postulated on the orbitals of planets.

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: For combination of grace, dramatic strength, and clearness in technique this picture would be difficult to surpass. There is nothing finicky about it; it tells its story with vivid directness. As a background to the figure Mrs. Rix Nicholas has set a piece of antique tapestry, so that the trees on either side lean in arch-wise over the head, the face and shoulders stand out clearly against an expanse of sky, and behind the body and limbs extends a countryside full of towers and rivers and trees. The quaint conventionality of this background accords exactly with the late eighteenth-century costume, all sprigged with roses and heliotrope; and the whole mass of detail harmonies [sic] perfectly with the type of the model's face. It is a cold, selfish face. The artist has brought out with revealing strokes an expression of vindictive malice which is for the moment resting there; and the hands, the fingers of one grasped tightly by the other, give a clear indication of nervous tension within. The treatment of flesh tones and the general arrangement, drawing attention gently but not too obtrusively to the columbines scattered on the polished floor—those are excellent.
While she exhibited many of the Australian works completed before arriving in France, she was also creating many new works, including illustrations and portraits of traditional life and costume, produced during a summer in Brittany. In 1926, Rix Nicholas was again included in London's Royal Academy of Art exhibition, where one of her Brittany paintings, Le Bigouden, was hung. She also appeared at the Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts Spring exhibition in Paris, in which she had eight works, a very large number for a single artist. The Société not only hung many of her paintings and drawings: she was also elected an Associate to the organisation in that year.At the end of 1926, Rix Nicholas and Dorothy Richmond together returned to Australia. Energised by her success, Rix Nicholas purchased a car, filled its rear compartment with painting equipment, and the pair set out to paint the landscape, ranging from Canberra and the Monaro plains to the south, up into central Queensland. This included a publicity-attracting occasion where she painted figures on the beach at Bondi, reported by various publications including Australian magazine, The Home.

Passage: Petrus Christus placed his sitter in a naturalistic setting rather than a flat and featureless background. This approach was in part a reaction against van der Weyden, who, in his emphasis on sculptural figures, utilised very shallow pictorial spaces. In his 1462 Portrait of a Man, Dieric Bouts went further by situating the man in a room complete with a window that looks out at a landscape, while in the 16th century, the full-length portrait became popular in the north. The latter format was practically unseen in earlier northern art, although it had a tradition in Italy going back centuries, most usually in fresco and illuminated manuscripts. Full-length portraits were reserved for depictions of the highest echelon of society, and were associated with princely displays of power. Of the second generation of northern painters, Hans Memling became the leading portraitist, taking commissions from as far as Italy. He was highly influential on later painters and is credited with inspiring Leonardo's positioning of the Mona Lisa in front of a landscape view. Van Eyck and van der Weyden similarly influenced the French artist Jean Fouquet and the Germans Hans Pleydenwurff and Martin Schongauer among others.The Netherlandish artists moved away from the profile view – popularised during the Italian Quattrocento – towards the less formal but more engaging three-quarter view. At this angle, more than one side of the face is visible as the sitter's body is rotated towards the viewer. This pose gives a better view of the shape and features of the head and allows the sitter to look out towards the viewer. The gaze of the sitter rarely engages the viewer. Van Eyck's 1433 Portrait of a Man is an early example, which shows the artist himself looking at the viewer.  Although there is often direct eye contact between subject and viewer, the look is normally detached, aloof and uncommunicative, perhaps to reflect the subject's high social position. There are exceptions, typically in bridal portraits or in the case of potential betrothals, when the object of the work is to make the sitter as attractive as possible. In these cases the sitter was often shown smiling, with an engaging and radiant expression designed to appeal to her intended.Around 1508, Albrecht Dürer described the function of portraiture as "preserving a person's appearance after his death". Portraits were objects of status, and served to ensure that the individual's personal success was recorded and would endure beyond his lifetime. Most portraits tended to show royalty, the upper nobility or princes of the church. The new affluence in the Burgundian Netherlands brought a wider variety of clientele, as members of the upper middle class could now afford to commission a portrait. As a result, more is known about the appearance and dress of the region's people than at any time since the late Roman period. Portraits did not generally require lengthy sittings; typically a series of preparatory drawings were used to flesh out the final panel. Very few of these drawings survive, a notable exception being van Eyck's study for his Portrait of Cardinal Niccolò Albergati.

Passage: Van der Weyden's depiction of the Magdalen is based on Mary of Bethany, identified by the time of Pope Gregory I as the repentant prostitute of Luke 7:36–50. She then became associated with weeping and reading: Christ's mercy causes the eyes of the sinner to be contrite or tearful. Early Renaissance artists often conveyed this idea by portraying contemplative eyes, associating tears with words, and in turn weeping with reading. Examples can be seen in 16th-century works by Tintoretto and Titian which show the Magdalen reading, often with her eyes averted towards her book (and presumably away from a male gaze), or looking up to the heavens or, sometimes, glancing coyly towards the viewer. Writing in "The Crying Face", Mosche Barasch explains that in van der Weyden's time the gesture of averting or concealing the eyes became a "pictorial formula for crying".
By the medieval period, reading became synonymous with devotion, which involved withdrawal from public view. Van der Weyden's placement of the Magdalen in an interior scene reflects the increasing literacy of domestic or laywomen in the mid-15th century. The increased production of devotional texts showed that noble women of the period routinely read texts such as a psalter or book of hours in the privacy of their homes. Whether the Magdalen herself was a reader, by the 17th century she was firmly established as such in the visual arts. Because the Magdalen was present at Christ's death and subsequent resurrection, she was seen as the bearer of news—a witness—and hence directly associated with the text.The Magdalen imagery further draws on the idea of Christ as the word, represented by a book, with the Magdalen as the reader learning of her own life story in a moment of reflection and repentance.  Her devotion to reading reflects her traditional status as the piously repentant harlot, as well as a prophetess or seer.  According to legend, the Magdalen lived the last 30 years of her life as a hermit in Sainte-Baume and is often shown with a book, reading or writing, symbolizing her later years of contemplation and repentance. By the 13th century she acquired the imagery of a once-shamed woman who, clothed in long hair, now hid her nakedness in exile and "borne by angels, floats between heaven and earth".The Magdalen's ointment jar was common in the lexicon of art in van der Weyden's period. Mary of Bethany may have used a jar when she repented of her sins at Christ's feet in her home; by the Renaissance, the image of the Magdalen was of the woman who bathed Christ's feet with her tears and dried them with her hair. She signified the "sacrament of anointing (Chrism and Unction)" by pouring precious spikenard on Christ's feet at his tomb.

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: Steven Lee Lukather (born October 21, 1957) is an American guitarist, singer, songwriter, arranger and record producer, best known as a founding member of Toto. A prolific session musician, Lukather has recorded guitar tracks for more than 1,500 albums representing a broad array of artists and genres. He has also contributed to albums and hit singles as a songwriter, arranger and producer. Lukather was a prominent contributor to several studio albums by Michael Jackson, including Thriller, the best-selling album of all time. Lukather has released seven solo albums, the latest of which, Transition, was released in January 2013.
In 1976, when Lukather was nineteen years old, he was invited by his high school friends David Paich and the Porcaro brothers Steve and Jeff to join them in forming their band, Toto. He has been a member of the band ever since it began, and is still fully contributing to their album composition and touring. Lukather's reputation as a guitarist and his association with Paich and the Porcaro brothers, who also became established artists, allowed him to secure a steady flow of session work in the 1970s and 1980s. Lukather has been nominated for twelve Grammy Awards, and has won five. While his work with Toto was predominantly based on pop rock music and his solo work ventures into progressive rock and hard rock, many of Lukather's side-projects are focused on jazz fusion. He held a long-time collaboration with jazz guitarist Larry Carlton that produced a Grammy-winning live album, and he was a member of the jazz fusion band Los Lobotomys, a collaboration of notable session musicians. Since 2012, Lukather has toured with former Beatles drummer Ringo Starr's live supergroup, the All-Starr Band.
Influenced by such blues-rock guitarists as Jimi Hendrix and Jimmy Page, and such jazz fusion players as Al Di Meola and Frank Gambale, Lukather is known for a "melodic and intense" playing style. He is also recognized for his efficiency in the studio, often recording tracks in one take using minimal sound processing. While he once used many guitar effects in the studio and on stage, he now frequently disparages such practice, and instead advocates clean tones and minimal studio processing. Lukather plays primarily a signature electric guitar manufactured by Ernie Ball Music Man bearing his nickname, Luke. He also plays Yamaha and Ovation Adamas series acoustic–electric guitars.

Passage: Lukather achieved notability in the 1970s and 1980s as one of the most sought-after session guitarists in Los Angeles, playing with a wide range of artists from Aretha Franklin to Warren Zevon. He has performed on over 1,500 records spanning 36 years. Music journalist Jude Gold noted, "It's hard to name a guitarist who has had a more prolific and fulfilling career than Steve Lukather." Lukather credits fellow Toto members David Paich and Jeff Porcaro for getting him exposure in the industry—although he lamented in an April 2011 interview that opportunities for session musicians have curtailed in recent years: "There is no 'session guy' thing any more—not like it was. It's not like the old days when I was doing 25 sessions a week. All the studios are gone. The budgets are gone. The record companies are all gone." His own output as a session musician has slowed along with the rest of the industry—as of 2009, Lukather stated he was only doing a few sessions a year.Named by Gibson Guitar Corporation as one of the Top 10 session guitarists of all time, Lukather has performed on many notable tracks. He performed the guitar solo for Olivia Newton-John's popular 1981 single "Physical", which was Billboard's Number One single of the 1980s. Other notable session performances include Earth, Wind & Fire's Faces album soloing on the tracks "Back on the Road" and "You Went Away", two tracks from the Lionel Richie album Can't Slow Down, and the Richard Marx album Repeat Offender. Lukather and Jeff Porcaro were heavily involved in the recording of virtually all of Michael Jackson's Thriller. In addition to recording guitar tracks, Lukather has also written or produced music for Lionel Richie, Richard Marx, Chicago, Donna Summer, and The Tubes. He won a Grammy award in 1982 for the George Benson song "Turn Your Love Around".

Passage: When not working with Toto, Lukather has participated in numerous side projects including playing with jazz fusion band Los Lobotomys and with other session musicians, and touring with Larry Carlton, Joe Satriani, Steve Vai, and others.
Lukather was a long-time member of the band Los Lobotomys, a collaboration of session musicians including jazz and be-bop player David "Creatchy" Garfield and Toto drummer Jeff Porcaro, replaced after his death by Simon Phillips, who also replaced Porcaro in Toto. Los Lobotomys formed in the mid-1980s and played regular shows in the Los Angeles area, often inviting whatever session musicians happened to be available and in the area. They recorded an album under the Los Lobotomys name in 1989, and the band was heavily involved in the recording of Lukather's Candyman. Los Lobotomys recorded a live album in 2004 comprising several tracks from Candyman and from the 1989 album.In 1998, Lukather received an invitation to tour Japan with fellow guitarist Larry Carlton after Japanese promoters requested that Carlton's annual tours each be different from the last. Lukather and Carlton exchanged some recorded material and decided that a collaboration would be interesting. Lukather was flattered by the invitation to tour with Carlton, citing him as his favorite guitarist. Lukather speaks highly of their stage efforts, although the two were admittedly outside their normal realm of work. He stated in an interview that "you can hear us having fun on the record—you can hear the smiles on our faces." After several shows, the duo realized that they should record their collaboration even if just for their own use. Guitarist and producer Steve Vai heard one of the subsequent recordings and expressed interest in releasing it under his Favored Nations label, also home to such artists as Eric Johnson and Dweezil Zappa. Vai and Lukather mixed and produced the recording, which is said to be a mixture of jazz, blues, and fusion music. The resulting album, No Substitutions: Live in Osaka, won a 2001 Grammy award for Best Pop Instrumental Album. Album reviewers described Lukather as having a heavier style than Carlton. Lukather and Carlton later did an international tour in support of the album.In 2005, Lukather won critical praise for his rendition of the Jimi Hendrix song "Little Wing" at a gala 90th birthday celebration for jazz guitarist Les Paul. Returning after a five-year absence, the 2012 G3 Tour featured Lukather alongside Joe Satriani and Steve Vai.

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 1946, after fighting in World War II, two former United States Air Force pilots in North Africa, Brynie MacKay and Mike Brewer are forced to work for Lee Harris, an international smuggler to get money needed for their return to civilian life.  The smuggler wants them to fly to France, with Egyptian cotton cargo. When Brynie finds that their real cargo is contraband cigarettes, he extorts Harris for more money. In retaliation, Harris plants narcotics on Brynie's aircraft and informs Colonel Wilson at U. S. Counterintelligence.
With Byrnie's aircraft impounded and his money seized, Elena, Harris's mistress comes to his aid. Harris exacts a promise for 12 more illegal cargo flights, but Mike warns that they will both be killed if they go ahead with this scheme. When Mike tries to trap Harris by informing Col. Wilson about the smuggling runs, Harris, who is flying with the two pilots, kills Mike, but is knocked out by Byrnie.
Fearing Harris's gang is waiting for him at the prearranged destination, Byrnie lands his aircraft at an abandoned military air strip and informs Wilson where the contraband can be found.  With Elena at his side, Byrnie then escapes to North Africa. When Harris tracks them down, Brynie overcomes Harris and turns him over to Wilson, and because of the deal Mike had made, is released. Byrnie decides to return to the United States with Elena and become a teacher, his former profession.

Passage: Charlie Snow was a highly decorated war hero, a sniper who never placed emotion before the mission. Except once. Providing cover for an undercover arms dealer sting operation, he was forced into a predicament, as through his scope he saw a hostage crisis unfold.
The decision he made cost his fellow soldiers their lives. But he also managed to kill the hostage-taker, arms dealer Lendl Bodnar.
Back in the USA, Charlie is now a shell of the man he used to be. He has been ostracized from the government, and his family is falling apart. His wife Maggie is close to finalizing their split.
But Charlie's world is about to get rocked. Lendl Bodnar has a brother named Yevon Bodnar, an arms dealer who wants revenge on Charlie for Lendl's death.
Charlie's learns that Maggie has been kidnapped, his daughter Lisa and son Sam are in danger.  Everywhere he turns, he's being attacked by Yevon's men.
Charlie must summon all the tactics that made him such an effective killer and reconnect with his secret ops government links to rescue Maggie and take Yevon down.

Passage: Ryker, a former mercenary, comes out of retirement to take part in the overthrow of an African dictator. He travels to London to meet former war comrade Jesse Jones, and his associates Freddy Bradshaw and Temple Smith. After helping fellow mercenaries test and ship weapons to South Africa, Ryker begins to have ethical concerns about his involvement. He eventually distances himself from the others, and rents a flat in London. He falls into hippie culture, and begins dating a girl named Chrissie.
Jesse tracks down Ryker. Explaining that the operation is not producing the profits he expected, he tries to convince Ryker to return. Ryker declines, but develops a plan with Jesse to thwart the operation and take the money for themselves. They succeed and escape with Bradshaw's car. A weapons dealer named Rawlings pursues them.
Jesse discovers that their "take" is somewhat less than the amount of cash they supposedly embezzled. Ryker reveals that his real plan was to sabotage the gun running operation, not to take all the money. Jesse assaults Ryker; Ryker, now a pacifist, refuses to defend himself. Ryker is eventually forced to break Jesse's ankle to end his assault. As Ryker bundles Jesse into a car to seek medical treatment, Rawlings shoots them down with rifle fire.

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: Early in March 1676, a Danish fleet of 20 ships under Admiral Niels Juel left Copenhagen. On 29 April it landed troops on Gotland, which soon surrendered. The Swedish fleet was ordered out on 4 May, but experienced adverse winds and was delayed until 19 May. Juel had by then already left Visby, the principal port of Gotland with a garrison force. He headed for Bornholm to join with a small Danish–Dutch squadron in cruising between Scania and the island of Rügen to prevent any Swedish seaborne reinforcement from reaching Pomerania. On 25–26 May the two fleets met each another in the battle of Bornholm. Despite the considerable Swedish advantage in ships, men and guns, they were unable to inflict any losses on the allied force, and lost a fireship and two minor vessels. The battle revealed the lack of coherence and organization within the Swedish ranks, which soured relations between Creutz and his officers.After the failed action, the Swedish fleet anchored off Trelleborg where King Charles was waiting with new orders to recapture Gotland. The fleet was to avoid combat with the allies at least until they reached the northern tip of Öland, where they could fight in friendly waters. When the Swedish fleet left Trelleborg on 30 May they were soon intercepted by the allied fleet, which then began a pursuit. By this time the allies had been reinforced by another small squadron and totaled 42 vessels, with 25 large and medium ships of the line. The reinforcements brought with them a new commander, the Dutch Admiral General Cornelis Tromp, one of the most renowned naval tacticians of his time. The two fleets sailed north and on 1 June passed the northern tip of Öland in a strong gale. The Swedish ships fared poorly in the rough winds, losing masts and spars. The Swedish officers formed a battle line that held together only with great difficulty. They tried to get ahead of Tromp's ships to gain the weather gage by getting between the allies and the shore, and thereby gaining an advantageous tactical position. The Dutch ships of the allied fleet managed to sail close-hauled faster than the rest of the force and slipped between the Swedes and the coast, taking up the crucial weather gage. Later that morning the two fleets closed in on each other and were soon within firing range.

Passage: After the Swedish loss at the battle of Fehrbellin in June 1675, the fleet was to support troop transports to reinforce Swedish Pomerania. It had potential for success as it was equipped with several large, well-armed ships: Svärdet ("the sword") of 1,800 tonnes, Äpplet ("the orb") and Nyckeln ("the key"), both 1,400 tonnes, and the enormous Kronan ("the crown"). Altogether there were 28 large and medium warships and almost the same number of smaller vessels. The supply organization was lacking. There were few experienced high-ranking officers and internal cooperation was poor; Danish contemporaries scornfully described the Swedish Navy crews as mere "farmhands dipped in saltwater".With Kronan as its flagship, the fleet went to sea in October 1675 under Admiral of the Realm (riksamiral) Gustaf Otto Stenbock, but got no farther than Stora Karlsö off Gotland. The weather was unusually cold and stormy and the ships could not be heated. The crew were poorly clothed and soon many of them fell ill. Supplies dwindled, and after Kronan lost a bow anchor after less than two weeks at sea, Stenbock decided to turn back to the Dalarö anchorage north of Stockholm. Nothing came of the reinforcements of the North German provinces. King Charles reacted with anger and held Stenbock personally responsible for the failed expedition, forcing him to pay more than 100,000 dalers out of his own pocket. King Charles later rehabilitated Stenbock by giving him an army appointment in Norway, but in early 1676 he replaced him with Lorentz Creutz, a prominent treasury official. Naval historian Jan Glete has explained this as a step that was "necessary in a time of crisis" due to Creutz's administrative skills and treasury connections, but Creutz had no experience as a naval commander, something that would later prove crucial.

Passage: Much of the court martial testimony was critical of Bligh's conduct—by the time of his return to England in August 1793, following his successful conveyance of breadfruit to the West Indies aboard Providence, professional and public opinion had turned against him. He was snubbed at the Admiralty when he went to present his report, and was left on half pay for 19 months before receiving his next appointment. In late 1794 the jurist Edward Christian, brother of Fletcher, published his Appendix to the court martial proceedings, which was said by the press to "palliate the behaviour of Christian and the Mutineers, and to criminate Captain Bligh". Bligh's position was further undermined when the loyalist gunner Peckover confirmed that much of what was alleged in the Appendix was true.Bligh commanded HMS Director at the Battle of Camperdown in October 1797 and HMS Glatton in the Battle of Copenhagen in April 1801. In 1805 while commanding HMS Warrior, he was court-martialled for using bad language to his officers, and reprimanded. In 1806, he was appointed Governor of New South Wales in Australia; after two years a group of army officers arrested and deposed him in the Rum Rebellion. After his return to England, Bligh was promoted to rear-admiral in 1811 and vice-admiral in 1814, but was not offered further naval appointments. He died, aged 63, in December 1817.Of the pardoned mutineers, Heywood and Morrison returned to naval duty. Heywood acquired the patronage of Hood and, by 1803 at the age of 31, had achieved the rank of captain. After a distinguished career, he died in 1831. Morrison became a master gunner, and was eventually lost in 1807 when HMS Blenheim foundered in the Indian Ocean. Muspratt is believed to have worked as a naval steward before his death, in or before 1798. The other principal participants in the court martial—Fryer, Peckover, Coleman, McIntosh and others—generally vanished from the public eye after the closing of the procedures.

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: Ecosystems in the Everglades have been described as both fragile and resilient. Author Michael Grunwald wrote about the observations of the Everglades' first American visitors: "If the Grand Canyon was a breathtaking painting, the Everglades was a complex drama, and everything in it had a role." An estimated 11,000 species of seed-bearing plants and 400 species of land or water vertebrates live in the Everglades, but slight variations in water levels affect many organisms and reshape land formations. The health and productivity of any ecosystem relies on the number of species present: the loss of one species weakens the entire ecosystem.For example, Florida apple snails (Pomacea paludosa)  are an amphibious fresh water mollusk. They have a single gill and lung, and live on stalks of sawgrass in water depths no more than 20 inches (51 cm). They are the primary food of the endangered snail kite (Rostrhamus sociabilis) and limpkin (Aramus guarauna) as well as the raccoon, otter, and young alligator. Apple snails lay their eggs on sawgrass stalks about 6 inches (15 cm) above the water line, and they are intolerant of being submerged for long periods of time. When the eggs hatch, young snails must enter the water quickly or face death. When water levels are too low or rise too quickly while snail eggs are developing, apple snails do not flourish, affecting the many reptiles, mammals, and birds that feed on them. With regard to the ecology of trophic dynamics, or food chains, the 174 species of invertebrates play a vital role in the Everglades. Crayfish, insects, scorpions, and other invertebrates also support a web of animals.

Passage: Fish found in Shoshone National Forest include at least six species and subspecies of trout  including rainbow, brook and brown trout. The Yellowstone cutthroat trout is widespread throughout the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem, but in the forest is mostly limited to the Shoshone River. The mountain whitefish is also found in the Shoshone River, while the burbot is found in two streams in the southern regions of the forest.There are more than a dozen species of reptiles in the forest including the venomous prairie rattlesnake which can be found at lower elevations. The western painted and the ornate box turtle are turtle species known to exist and about eight species of lizards such as the greater short-horned lizard have been documented. Amphibians such as the Columbia spotted frog and the boreal toad are considered species of concern because of their high susceptibility to disease, habitat loss and human introduced toxins. Boreal toads are found at elevations of between 7,380 and 11,800 ft (2,250 and 3,600 m) and the Columbia spotted frog can live at elevations as high as 9,480 ft (2,890 m) in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem.Exotic species of fauna such as the zebra and quagga mussels and the New Zealand mud snail are invasive species that can greatly impact fish species. Though the mussel species are not known to be in Wyoming, several surrounding regions have reported them. The New Zealand mud snail has been found in the Shoshone River east of the forest. Forest managers have established a preventative program to try to keep these species from entering forest waterways.

Passage: The geography and ecology of the Everglades involve the complex elements affecting the natural environment throughout the southern region of the U.S. state of Florida. Before drainage, the Everglades were an interwoven mesh of marshes and prairies covering 4,000 square miles (10,000 km2). The Everglades is simultaneously a vast watershed that has historically extended from Lake Okeechobee 100 miles (160 km) south to Florida Bay (around one-third of the southern Florida peninsula), and many interconnected ecosystems within a geographic boundary. It is such a unique meeting of water, land, and climate that the use of either singular or plural to refer to the Everglades is appropriate. When Marjory Stoneman Douglas wrote her definitive description of the region in 1947, she used the metaphor "River of Grass" to explain the blending of water and plant life.
Although sawgrass and sloughs are the enduring geographical icons of the Everglades, other ecosystems are just as vital, and the borders marking them are subtle or nonexistent. Pinelands and tropical hardwood hammocks are located throughout the sloughs; the trees, rooted in soil inches above the peat, marl, or water, support a variety of wildlife. The oldest and tallest trees are cypresses, whose roots are specially adapted to grow underwater for months at a time. The Big Cypress Swamp is well known for its 500-year-old cypresses, though cypress domes can appear throughout the Everglades. As the fresh water from Lake Okeechobee makes its way to Florida Bay, it meets salt water from the Gulf of Mexico; mangrove forests grow in this transitional zone, providing nursery and nesting conditions for many species of birds, fish, and invertebrates. The marine environment of Florida Bay is also considered part of the Everglades because its sea grasses and aquatic life are attracted to the constant discharge of fresh water.
These ecological systems are always changing due to environmental factors. Geographic features such as the Western Flatwoods, Eastern Flatwoods, and the Atlantic Coastal Ridge affect drainage patterns. Geologic elements, climate, and the frequency of storms and fire are formative processes for the Everglades. They help to sustain and transform the ecosystems in the Shark River Valley, Big Cypress Swamp, coastal areas and mangrove forests. Ecosystems have been described as both fragile and resilient. Minor fluctuations in water levels have far-reaching consequences for many plant and animal species, and the system cycles and pulses with each change.

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: Petrus Christus placed his sitter in a naturalistic setting rather than a flat and featureless background. This approach was in part a reaction against van der Weyden, who, in his emphasis on sculptural figures, utilised very shallow pictorial spaces. In his 1462 Portrait of a Man, Dieric Bouts went further by situating the man in a room complete with a window that looks out at a landscape, while in the 16th century, the full-length portrait became popular in the north. The latter format was practically unseen in earlier northern art, although it had a tradition in Italy going back centuries, most usually in fresco and illuminated manuscripts. Full-length portraits were reserved for depictions of the highest echelon of society, and were associated with princely displays of power. Of the second generation of northern painters, Hans Memling became the leading portraitist, taking commissions from as far as Italy. He was highly influential on later painters and is credited with inspiring Leonardo's positioning of the Mona Lisa in front of a landscape view. Van Eyck and van der Weyden similarly influenced the French artist Jean Fouquet and the Germans Hans Pleydenwurff and Martin Schongauer among others.The Netherlandish artists moved away from the profile view – popularised during the Italian Quattrocento – towards the less formal but more engaging three-quarter view. At this angle, more than one side of the face is visible as the sitter's body is rotated towards the viewer. This pose gives a better view of the shape and features of the head and allows the sitter to look out towards the viewer. The gaze of the sitter rarely engages the viewer. Van Eyck's 1433 Portrait of a Man is an early example, which shows the artist himself looking at the viewer.  Although there is often direct eye contact between subject and viewer, the look is normally detached, aloof and uncommunicative, perhaps to reflect the subject's high social position. There are exceptions, typically in bridal portraits or in the case of potential betrothals, when the object of the work is to make the sitter as attractive as possible. In these cases the sitter was often shown smiling, with an engaging and radiant expression designed to appeal to her intended.Around 1508, Albrecht Dürer described the function of portraiture as "preserving a person's appearance after his death". Portraits were objects of status, and served to ensure that the individual's personal success was recorded and would endure beyond his lifetime. Most portraits tended to show royalty, the upper nobility or princes of the church. The new affluence in the Burgundian Netherlands brought a wider variety of clientele, as members of the upper middle class could now afford to commission a portrait. As a result, more is known about the appearance and dress of the region's people than at any time since the late Roman period. Portraits did not generally require lengthy sittings; typically a series of preparatory drawings were used to flesh out the final panel. Very few of these drawings survive, a notable exception being van Eyck's study for his Portrait of Cardinal Niccolò Albergati.

Passage: Stefan Lochner (the Dombild Master or Master Stefan; c. 1410 – late 1451) was a German painter working in the late "soft style" of the International Gothic. His paintings combine that era's tendency toward long flowing lines and brilliant colours with the realism, virtuoso surface textures and innovative iconography of the early Northern Renaissance. Based in Cologne, a commercial and artistic hub of northern Europe, Lochner was one of the most important German painters before Albrecht Dürer. Extant works include single-panel oil paintings, devotional polyptychs and illuminated manuscripts, which often feature fanciful and blue-winged angels. Today some thirty-seven individual panels are attributed to him with confidence.
Less is known of his life. Art historians associating the Dombild Master with the historical Stefan Lochner believe he was born in Meersburg in south-west Germany around 1410, and that he spent some of his apprenticeship in the Low Countries. Records further indicate that his career developed quickly but was cut short by an early death. We know that he was commissioned around 1442 by the Cologne council to provide decorations for the visit of Emperor Frederick III, a major occasion for the city. Records from the following years indicate growing wealth and the purchase of a number of properties around the city. Thereafter he seems to have over-extended his finances and fallen into debt. Plague hit Cologne in 1451 and there, apart from the records of creditors, mention of Stephan Lochner ends; it is presumed he died that year, aged around 40.
Lochner's identity and reputation were lost until a revival of 15th-century art during the early 19th-century romantic period. Despite extensive historical research, attribution remains difficult; for centuries a number of associated works were grouped and loosely attributed to the Dombild Master, a notname taken from the Dombild Altarpiece (in English cathedral picture, also known as the Altarpiece of the City's Patron Saints) still in Cologne Cathedral. One of Dürer's diary entries became key, 400 years later, in the 20th-century establishment of Lochner's identity. Only two attributed works are dated, and none are signed. His influence on successive generations of northern artists was substantial. Apart from the many direct copies made in the later 15th century, echoes of his panels can be seen in works by Rogier van der Weyden and Hans Memling. Lochner's work was praised by Friedrich Schlegel and Goethe for its qualities, especially the "sweetness and grace" of his Madonnas.

Passage: Ruisdael's work from c. 1646 to the early 1650s, when he was living in Haarlem, is characterised by simple motifs and careful and laborious study of nature: dunes, woods, and atmospheric effects. By applying heavier paint than his predecessors, Ruisdael gave his foliage a rich quality, conveying a sense of sap flowing through branches and leaves. His accurate rendering of trees was unprecedented at the time: the genera of his trees are the first to be unequivocally recognisable by modern-day botanists. His early sketches introduce motifs that would return in all his work: a sense of spaciousness and luminosity, and an airy atmosphere achieved through pointillist-like touches of chalk. Most of his thirty black chalk sketches that survive date from this period.An exemplar of Ruisdael's early style is Dune Landscape, one of the earliest works, dated 1646. It breaks with the classic Dutch tradition of depicting broad views of dunes that include houses and trees flanked by distant vistas. Instead, Ruisdael places tree-covered dunes prominently at centre stage, with a cloudscape concentrating strong light on a sandy path. The resulting heroic effect is enhanced by the large size of the canvas, "so unexpected in the work of an inexperienced painter" according to Irina Sokolova, curator at the Hermitage Museum. The art historian Hofstede de Groot said of Dune Landscape: "It is hardly credible that it should be the work of a boy of seventeen".
Ruisdael's first panoramic landscape, View of Naarden with the Church at Muiderberg in the Distance, dates from 1647. The theme of an overwhelming sky and a distant town, in this case the birthplace of his father, is one he returned to in his later years.For unknown reasons, Ruisdael almost entirely stopped dating his work from 1653. Only five works from the 1660s have a, partially obscured, year next to his signature; none from the 1670s and 1680s have a date. Dating subsequent work has therefore been largely based on detective work and speculation.All thirteen known Ruisdael etchings come from his early period, with the first one dated 1646. It is unknown who taught him the art of etching. No etchings exist signed by his father, his uncle, or his fellow Haarlem landscapist Cornelis Vroom, who influenced his other work. His etchings show little influence from Rembrandt, either in style or technique. Few original impressions exist; five etchings survive in only a single impression. The rarity of prints suggests that Ruisdael considered them trial essays, which did not warrant large editions. The etching expert Georges Duplessis singled out Grainfield at the Edge of a Wood and The Travellers as unrivalled illustrations of Ruisdael's genius.

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 1951 Festival production, by Siegfried's and Winifred's son Wieland, broke with tradition and featured an austere staging which replaced scenery and props with skilful lighting effects. The Rhinemaidens, along with all the other characters, were plainly dressed in simple robes, and sang their roles without histrionics. Thus the music and the words became the main focus of attention. Wieland was influenced by Adolphe Appia, whose Notes sur l'Anneau du Nibelungen (1924–25) had been dismissed by Cosima: "Appia seems to be unaware that the Ring was performed here in 1876. It follows that the staging is definitive and sacrosanct." However, Wieland and his brother Wolfgang praised Appia: "... the stylised stage, inspired by the music and the realisation of three-dimensional space – constitute the initial impulses for a reform of operatic stagings which led quite logically to the 'New Bayreuth' style."The innovative centenary Bayreuth Ring, directed by Patrice Chéreau, did away altogether with the underwater concept by setting the Rhinemaiden scenes in the lee of a large hydro-electric dam, as part of a 19th-century Industrial Revolution setting for the operas. For the scene with Siegfried in Götterdämmerung, Chéreau altered the perpetual youth aspect of the Rhine Maidens by depicting them as "no longer young girls merrily disporting themselves; they have become tired, grey, careworn, and ungainly". Since this production "the assumption of unrestricted interpretive license has become the norm". For example, Nikolaus Lehnhoff, in his 1987 Bayerische Staatsoper production, placed the Rhinemaidens in a salon and had their lament at the end of Rheingold played on a gramophone by Loge.

Passage: Peter Hall directed the Bayreuth Ring after Chéreau. His version, staged 1983–86, portrayed the natural innocence of the Rhinemaidens in the simplest of ways; they were naked. Keith Warner adapted this feature in his Ring production for the Royal Opera House Covent Garden, first staged 2004–06. A Covent Garden spokesman explained "The maidens are children of innocence, a vision of nature – and as soon as someone appears they hastily throw on some clothes to protect their modesty." While Warner relies on lighting to achieve an underwater effect, Hall used a Pepper's ghost illusion: mirrors at a 45° angle made the Rhinemaidens appear to swim vertically when the performers were in fact swimming horizontally in a shallow basin.Although the roles of the Rhinemaidens are relatively small, they have been sung by notable singers better known for performing major roles in Wagnerian and other repertoire. The first person to sing the part of Woglinde in full was Lilli Lehmann at Bayreuth in 1876. In 1951, when the Bayreuth Festival re-opened after the Second World War, the same part was taken by Elisabeth Schwarzkopf. Other Bayreuth Rhinemaidens include  Helga Dernesch who sang Wellgunde there between 1965 and 1967. Lotte Lehmann  played Wellgunde at the Hamburg State Opera between 1912 and 1914 and the Vienna State Opera in 1916.   Recorded Rhinemaidens have included Sena Jurinac for Furtwängler and RAI, Lucia Popp and Gwyneth Jones for Georg Solti, and Helen Donath and Edda Moser for Karajan.

Passage: The Rhinemaidens are the three water-nymphs (Rheintöchter or "Rhine daughters") who appear in Richard Wagner's opera cycle Der Ring des Nibelungen. Their individual names are Woglinde, Wellgunde and Flosshilde (Floßhilde), although they are generally treated as a single entity and they act together accordingly. Of the 34 characters in the Ring cycle, they are the only ones who did not originate in the Old Norse Eddas. Wagner created his Rhinemaidens from other  legends and myths, most notably the Nibelungenlied which contains stories involving water-sprites (nixies) or mermaids. The key concepts associated with the Rhinemaidens in the Ring operas—their flawed guardianship of the Rhine gold, and the condition (the renunciation of love) through which the gold could be stolen from them and then transformed into a means of obtaining world power—are wholly Wagner's own invention, and are the elements that initiate and propel the entire drama.
The Rhinemaidens are the first and the last characters seen in the four-opera cycle, appearing both in the opening scene of Das Rheingold, and in the final climactic spectacle of Götterdämmerung, when they rise from the Rhine waters to reclaim the ring from Brünnhilde's ashes.  They have been described as morally innocent, yet they display a range of sophisticated emotions, including some that are far from guileless. Seductive and elusive, they have no relationship to any of the other characters, and no indication is given as to how they came into existence, beyond occasional references to an unspecified "father".
The various musical themes associated with the Rhinemaidens are regarded as among the most lyrical in the entire Ring cycle, bringing to it rare instances of comparative relaxation and charm. The music contains important melodies and phrases which are reprised and developed elsewhere in the operas to characterise other individuals and circumstances, and to relate plot developments to the source of the narrative. It is reported that Wagner played the Rhinemaidens' lament at the piano, on the night before he died in Venice, in 1883.

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 seabed contains enormous reserves of minerals which can be exploited by dredging. This has advantages over land-based mining in that equipment can be built at specialised shipyards and infrastructure costs are lower. Disadvantages include problems caused by waves and tides, the tendency for excavations to silt up and the washing away of spoil heaps. There is a risk of coastal erosion and environmental damage.
Seafloor massive sulphide deposits are potential sources of silver, gold, copper, lead and zinc and trace metals since their discovery in the 1960s. They form when geothermally heated water is emitted from deep sea hydrothermal vents known as "black smokers". The ores are of high quality but prohibitively costly to extract. Small scale mining of the deep sea floor is being developed off the coast of Papua New Guinea using robotic techniques, but the obstacles are formidable.There are large deposits of petroleum, as oil and natural gas, in rocks beneath the seabed. Offshore platforms and drilling rigs extract the oil or gas and store it for transport to land. Offshore oil and gas production can be difficult due to the remote, harsh environment. Drilling for oil in the sea has environmental impacts. Animals may be disorientated by seismic waves used to locate deposits, probably causing the beaching of whales. Toxic substances such as mercury, lead and arsenic may be released. The infrastructure may cause damage, and oil may be spilt.Large quantities of methane clathrate exist on the seabed and in ocean sediment at a temperature of around 2 °C (36 °F) and these are of interest as a potential energy source. Some estimates put the amount available at between one and 5 million cubic kilometres (0.24 to 1.2 million cubic miles). Also on the seabed are manganese nodules formed of layers of iron, manganese and other hydroxides around a core. In the Pacific these may cover up to 30 percent of the deep ocean floor. The minerals precipitate from seawater and grow very slowly. Their commercial extraction for nickel was investigated in the 1970s but abandoned in favour of more convenient sources. In suitable locations, diamonds are gathered from the seafloor using suction hoses to bring gravel ashore. In deeper waters, mobile seafloor crawlers are used and the deposits are pumped to a vessel above. In Namibia, more diamonds are now collected from marine sources than by conventional methods on land.

Passage: The sea offers a very large supply of energy carried by ocean waves, tides, salinity differences, and ocean temperature differences which can be harnessed to generate electricity. Forms of 'green' marine energy include tidal power, marine current power, osmotic power, ocean thermal energy and wave power.
Tidal power uses generators to produce electricity from tidal flows, sometimes by using a dam to store and then release seawater. The Rance barrage, 1 kilometre (0.62 mi) long, near St Malo in Brittany opened in 1967; it generates about 0.5 GW, but it has been followed by few similar schemes.The large and highly variable energy of waves gives them enormous destructive capability, making affordable and reliable wave machines problematic to develop. A small 2 MW commercial wave power plant, "Osprey", was built in Northern Scotland in 1995 about 300 metres (1000 ft) offshore. It was soon damaged by waves, then destroyed by a storm. Marine current power could provide populated areas close to the sea with a significant part of their energy needs. In principle, it could be harnessed by open-flow turbines; sea bed systems are available, but limited to a depth of about 40 metres (130 ft).Offshore wind power is captured by wind turbines  placed out at sea; it has the advantage that wind speeds are higher than on land, though wind farms are more costly to construct offshore. The first offshore wind farm was installed in Denmark in 1991, and the installed capacity of European offshore wind farms reached 3 GW in 2010.Electricity power stations are often located on the coast or beside an estuary so that the sea can be used as a heat sink. A colder heat sink enables more efficient power generation, which is important for expensive nuclear power plants in particular.

Passage: Farthest South was the most southerly latitudes reached by explorers before the conquest of the South Pole in 1911. Significant steps on the road to the pole were the discovery of lands south of Cape Horn in 1619, Captain James Cook's crossing of the Antarctic Circle in 1773, and the earliest confirmed sightings of the Antarctic mainland in 1820. From the late 19th century onward, the quest for Farthest South latitudes became in effect a race to reach the pole, which culminated in Roald Amundsen's success in December 1911.
In the years before reaching the pole was a realistic objective, other motives drew adventurers southward. Initially, the driving force was the discovery of new trade routes between Europe and the Far East. After such routes had been established and the main geographical features of the earth had been broadly mapped, the lure for mercantile adventurers was the great fertile continent of "Terra Australis" which, according to myth, lay hidden in the south. Belief in the existence of this supposed land of plenty persisted well into the 18th century; explorers were reluctant to accept the truth that slowly emerged, of a cold, harsh environment in the lands of the Southern Ocean.
James Cook's voyages of 1771–74 demonstrated conclusively the likely hostile nature of any hidden lands. This caused a shift of emphasis in the first half of the 19th century, away from trade and towards sealing and whaling, and then exploration and discovery. After the first overwintering on continental Antarctica in 1898–99 (Adrien de Gerlache), the prospect of reaching the South Pole appeared realistic, and the race for the pole began. The British were pre-eminent in this endeavor, which was characterized by the rivalry between Robert Falcon Scott and Ernest Shackleton during the Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration. Shackleton's efforts fell short; Scott reached the pole in January 1912 only to find that he had been beaten by the Norwegian Amundsen.

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: H. L. Hunley takes his ship, the H.L. Hunley, out in the Charleston, South Carolina  harbor and it sinks with all hands. As the blockade still needs to be broken, Brig. Gen. P. G. T. Beauregard has the ship raised and puts George E. Dixon in charge. He starts looking for a crew and after some difficulty finally finds enough volunteers to man it. They practice cranking the propeller. The crew do not all get along with each other. Dixon flashes back to the Battle of Shiloh, where a gold coin given to him by his wife (who was later killed in a steamboat explosion caused by a drifting mine) deflected a bullet and saved his life. They take the ship down and sit on the bottom to see how long they can stay down and almost get stuck. The U.S. Navy is warned about the sub. The crew votes that if after an attack they are stuck on the bottom, they will open the valves, flooding the ship, rather than suffocate. They go out to attack the USS Wabash, but the attack fails. Following the warning the ship has draped metal chain netting over the side. Also the rope which was attached to the torpedo they were to release under the ship gets loose and becomes entangled in the propeller. It has to be cut loose while sailors on the Wabash shoot at the Hunley. Beauregard proposes putting the torpedo at the end of a long spar. The USS Housatonic is ordered to change its position in the harbor and always be ready to steam, meaning it cannot hang metal netting over the side. The Hunley's second in command, Lt. Alexander, is ordered to Mobile, Alabama, and a young soldier who had been volunteering to join the crew is allowed to do so.

Passage: One night in Portsmouth, England in 1787, a press gang breaks into a local tavern and presses all of the men drinking there into naval service.  One of the men inquires as to what ship they will sail on, and the press gang leader informs him that it is HMS Bounty. Upon inquiring as to who the captain is, another of the men is told the captain is William Bligh and attempts to escape, as Bligh is a brutal tyrant who routinely administers harsh punishment to officers and crew alike who lack discipline, cause any infraction on board the ship, or in any manner defy his authority. The Bounty leaves England several days later on a two-year voyage over the Pacific Ocean. Fletcher Christian, the ship's lieutenant, is a formidable yet compassionate man who disapproves of Bligh's treatment of the crew. Roger Byam is an idealistic midshipman who is divided between his loyalty to Bligh, owing to his family's naval tradition, and his friendship with Christian.
During the voyage, the enmity between Christian and Bligh grows after Christian openly challenges Bligh's unjust practices aboard the ship. When the ship arrives at the island of Tahiti, where the crew acquires breadfruit plants to take to the West Indies, as intended, Bligh punishes Christian by refusing to let him leave the ship during their stay. Byam, meanwhile, sets up residency on the island, living with the island chief, Hitihiti, and his daughter, Tehani, and compiling an English dictionary of the Tahitian language. Hitihiti persuades Bligh to allow Christian a day pass on the island. Bligh agrees but quickly repeals the pass out of spite. Christian disregards the order and spends his one-day off the ship romancing a Tahitian girl, Maimiti. Christian promises her he will be back someday.

Passage: The SS Claridon is an old ship that is scheduled to be scrapped after just a few more voyages. Cliff and Laurie Henderson and their daughter, Jill, are relocating to Tokyo and decide to sail there on board the ship. A fire in the boiler room is extinguished, but not before a boiler fuel supply valve is fused open. Before Chief Engineer Pringle can manually open a steam relief valve, a huge explosion rips through the boiler room and the many decks situated above it, killing him and some of the passengers and trapping Laurie under a steel beam in their state room, in addition to opening a huge hole in the side of the ship.
Cliff runs back to their state room and can't get Laurie out alone. He then finds Jill trapped on the other side of the room. He tries to use a shattered piece of the bed to get to the other side, but it falls through the huge hole made by the explosion. Third Officer Osborne believes that the crew should start loading the passengers into the lifeboats, but Captain Robert Adams is reluctant, as he never lost a ship. Cliff rescues Jill by using a board to have her crawl across the hole on. Down in the boiler room, Second Engineer Walsh reports to Captain Adams that a seam to the bulkhead has broken away. Cliff tries to get  a steward's help, but to no avail. A passenger states that he overheard his conversation, and wants to help.
Osborne reports that the boiler room is now half full. The ship then begins to transmit an SOS, on orders of Captain Adams. Cliff and a few other men return to his state room to try to help free Laurie, but find that they need a torch.
The carpenter reports to the crew that the boiler room is now two thirds full. Captain Adams makes an announcement to the passengers to put on their life jackets. They then begin loading and launching the lifeboats.

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: Earth has been devastated by a nuclear war instigated by five terrorists, and it has taken two million years for the radioactive clouds to once again allow sunlight to reach the surface. Only a handful of humans have survived the apocalypse, while the rest have changed into mutants who roam the radioactive wastelands. Eventually, humanity's true ancestors  – fairies, elves and dwarves – resurfaced and live in the idyllic land of Montagar in peace for three millennia.
While her people celebrated 3,000 years of peace, their ruler Delia, queen of the fairies, fell into a trance and left the party. Puzzled, the fairies followed her to her home and discover that she has given birth to twin wizards. They were the kindhearted Avatar who spent much of his boyhood entertaining his ailing mother with beautiful visions and his mutated brother Blackwolf, who was pure-evil, never visiting his mother, but spending his time torturing small animals. When Blackwolf learned of their mother's death, he attempted to usurp her leadership, being defeated in duel against a grief-stricken Avatar. Blackwolf left Montagar with a vow to return and "make this a planet where mutants rule".
Years later, Blackwolf has risen to lead the dark land of Scortch, where he and his vast army of goblins, ogres, and mutants salvage and restore ancient technology. He tries to attack Montagar twice, but is foiled both times when his mutant warriors become bored or sidetracked in the midst of battle. Blackwolf then discovers an old projector and reels of Nazi propaganda footage, using his magic to enhance it for psychological warfare: Inspiring his own soldiers while horrifying enemy troops into submission.

Passage: Robins plays bumbling mad scientist Nathaniel Pickman Wingate, of the Miskatonic University. He works on opening a portal to another dimension while his wife, Nancy and family prepare his fiftieth birthday party.  When he succeeds with contact with the new dimension, two triops-like creatures escape. These creatures possess shape-shifting abilities that allows them to assume the form and identity of anything, and thusly do so with Nancy's cousin, Count Desmon of Liechtenstein and Jasmine, a model from son Sam's (Dan Evans) poster.
Jasmine and Desmon are shown to be polar behavioral opposites. Jasmine is friendly and intelligent. Via her telepathic abilities she quickly becomes Sam's girlfriend. Desmon on the other hand is ill-behaved, surly, and mischievously malevolent. His mischievous personality drives him to pull terrible tricks on Sam's family via his powers—for example, Lindy overuses the phone, so Desmon stuffs the receiver in her mouth, causing her to go to the ER to have it extracted. Handyman Floyd is hurt by some cut wires a vindictive Desmon moves with psychokinesis giving him a severe electric shock. Suffering difficulties in retaining his new body, Desmon frightens off the maid Emma when he tries to seduce her. Reverend Lawrence Newman, Nathan's college roommate, tries some bedroom antics with Nathan's sister, Angelica; Desmon, clinging to the ceiling above them, uses his powers to transform Lawrence's penis into a dragon-like creature that attacks him.

Passage: In mid-1917 nine-year-old Frances Griffiths and her mother—both newly arrived in the UK from South Africa—were staying with Frances' aunt, Elsie Wright's mother, in the village of Cottingley in West Yorkshire; Elsie was then 16 years old. The two girls often played together beside the beck (stream) at the bottom of the garden, much to their mothers' annoyance, because they frequently came back with wet feet and clothes. Frances and Elsie said they only went to the beck to see the fairies, and to prove it, Elsie borrowed her father's camera, a Midg quarter-plate. The girls returned about 30 minutes later, "triumphant".Elsie's father, Arthur, was a keen amateur photographer, and had set up his own darkroom. The picture on the photographic plate he developed showed Frances behind a bush in the foreground, on which four fairies appeared to be dancing. Knowing his daughter's artistic ability, and that she had spent some time working in a photographer's studio, he dismissed the figures as cardboard cutouts. Two months later the girls borrowed his camera again, and this time returned with a photograph of Elsie sitting on the lawn holding out her hand to a 1-foot-tall (30 cm) gnome. Exasperated by what he believed to be "nothing but a prank", and convinced that the girls must have tampered with his camera in some way, Arthur Wright refused to lend it to them again. His wife Polly, however, believed the photographs to be authentic.
Towards the end of 1918, Frances sent a letter to Johanna Parvin, a friend in Cape Town, South Africa, where Frances had lived for most of her life, enclosing the photograph of herself with the fairies. On the back she wrote "It is funny, I never used to see them in Africa. It must be too hot for them there."The photographs became public in mid-1919, after Elsie's mother attended a meeting of the Theosophical Society in Bradford. The lecture that evening was on "fairy life", and at the end of the meeting Polly Wright showed the two fairy photographs taken by her daughter and niece to the speaker. As a result, the photographs were displayed at the society's annual conference in Harrogate, held a few months later. There they came to the attention of a leading member of the society, Edward Gardner. One of the central beliefs of theosophy is that humanity is undergoing a cycle of evolution, towards increasing "perfection", and Gardner recognised the potential significance of the photographs for the movement:
the fact that two young girls had not only been able to see fairies, which others had done, but had actually for the first time ever been able to materialise them at a density sufficient for their images to be recorded on a photographic plate, meant that it was possible that the next cycle of evolution was underway.

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: Born in Germany, Isaac Oscherwitz was a butcher who emigrated to America in the 1880s because of oppression and poverty. When he arrived in Cincinnati, he started his own sausage factory, which created jobs and a delicious product for the city's surprisingly well-populated Jewish community. But the Oscherwitzes also established their public face to the community through a family-run storefront shop, where they sold their meats and other classic Jewish delicacies. Decades later, Isaac's five sons extended the business to Chicago, which had become the center of the meat packing industry, and today the Oscherwitz family is responsible for well-known brands such as Best Kosher, Shofar, and Sinai.
This familial intimacy extends beyond the immediate family members to the way they treat everyone involved in the business, from factory workers to customers. "I don't think my husband ever felt like his customers were his customers," one woman says, "they were his friends." Another man, who took a job with the Oscherwitzes after he lost everything to the Holocaust, speaks highly of his employers. "It was such a family feeling," he explaining how warm and welcoming his coworkers have been.
The appeal of a family-owned product helped make the Oscherwitz brand popular, but fiscal success also jeopardized the family-run nature of the business. Before the swell of success, business meetings between the Oscherwitz brothers were a literal yelling contest, where arguments were won by the most powerful voice and, despite all the screaming, everyone left on good terms. But a big business couldn't run in the same way. The documentary shares the Oscherwitzes' inside struggles to keep their booming business family-run and shows the effects on everyone when they were bought out by a subsidiary of the Sara Lee Corporation.

Passage: The Night of the Long Knives (German: Nacht der langen Messer ), or the Röhm Purge, also called Operation Hummingbird (German: Unternehmen Kolibri), was a purge that took place in Nazi Germany from June 30 to July 2, 1934, when Adolf Hitler, urged on by Hermann Göring and Heinrich Himmler, carried out a series of political extrajudicial executions intended to consolidate his hold on power in Germany, as well as to alleviate the concerns of the German military about the role of Ernst Röhm and the Sturmabteilung (SA), the Nazis' own mass paramilitary organization. Nazi propaganda presented the murders as a preventive measure against an alleged imminent coup by the SA under Röhm – the so-called Röhm putsch.
The primary instruments of Hitler's action, who carried out most of the killings, were the Schutzstaffel (SS) paramilitary force under Himmler and its Security Service (SD) under Reinhard Heydrich, and the Gestapo, the secret police, under Göring. Göring's personal police battalion also took part in the killings. Many of those killed in the purge were leaders of the SA, the best-known being Röhm himself, the SA's chief of staff and one of Hitler's longtime supporters and allies. Leading members of the leftist-leaning Strasserist faction of the Nazi Party, including its figurehead, Gregor Strasser, were also killed, as were establishment conservatives and anti-Nazis, such as former Chancellor Kurt von Schleicher and Bavarian politician Gustav Ritter von Kahr, who had suppressed Hitler's Munich Beer Hall Putsch in 1923. The murders of SA leaders were also intended to improve the image of the Hitler government with a German public that was increasingly critical of thuggish SA tactics.

Passage: With a population of 80.2 million according to the 2011 census, rising to at least 81.9 million as of 31 December 2015, Germany is the most populous country in the European Union, the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the 16th most populous country in the world. Its population density stands at 227 inhabitants per square kilometre (588 per square mile). The overall life expectancy in Germany at birth is 80.19 years (77.93 years for males and 82.58 years for females). The fertility rate of 1.41 children born per woman (2011 estimates), below the replacement rate of 2.1, it remains considerably below the high of 5.28 children born per woman in 1884, or 8.33 births per 1000 inhabitants, is one of the lowest fertility rates in the world. Since the 1970s, Germany's death rate has exceeded its birth rate. However, Germany is witnessing increased birth rates and migration rates since the beginning of the 2010s, particularly a rise in the number of well-educated migrants. Germany has the 3rd oldest population in the world, with the average age of 47.4 years.Four sizeable groups of people are referred to as "national minorities" because their ancestors have lived in their respective regions for centuries: There is a Danish minority (about 50,000) in the northernmost state of Schleswig-Holstein; the Sorbs, a Slavic population of about 60,000, are in the Lusatia region of Saxony and Brandenburg.; the Roma and Sinti live throughout country; and the Frisians are concentrated in Schleswig-Holstein's western coast and in the north-western part of Lower Saxony.Approximately 5 million Germans live abroad (Auslandsdeutsche).

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: On December 21, 1970, Presley engineered a meeting with President Richard Nixon at the White House, where he expressed his patriotism and explained how he believed he could reach out to the hippies to help combat the drug culture he and the president abhorred. He asked Nixon for a Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs badge, to add to similar items he had begun collecting and to signify official sanction of his patriotic efforts. Nixon, who apparently found the encounter awkward, expressed a belief that Presley could send a positive message to young people and that it was therefore important that he "retain his credibility". Presley told Nixon that The Beatles, whose songs he regularly performed in concert during the era, exemplified what he saw as a trend of anti-Americanism. Presley and his friends previously had a four-hour get-together with The Beatles at his home in Bel Air, California in August 1965. On hearing reports of the meeting, Paul McCartney later said that he "felt a bit betrayed. ... The great joke was that we were taking [illegal] drugs, and look what happened to him", a reference to Presley's early death, linked to prescription drug abuse.The U.S. Junior Chamber of Commerce named Presley one of its annual Ten Most Outstanding Young Men of the Nation on January 16, 1971. Not long after, the City of Memphis named the stretch of Highway 51 South on which Graceland is located "Elvis Presley Boulevard". The same year, Presley became the first rock and roll singer to be awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award (then known as the Bing Crosby Award) by the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences, the Grammy Award organization. Three new, non-film Presley studio albums were released in 1971, as many as had come out over the previous eight years. Best received by critics was Elvis Country, a concept record that focused on genre standards. The biggest seller was Elvis Sings the Wonderful World of Christmas, "the truest statement of all", according to Greil Marcus. "In the midst of ten painfully genteel Christmas songs, every one sung with appalling sincerity and humility, one could find Elvis tom-catting his way through six blazing minutes of 'Merry Christmas Baby,' a raunchy old Charles Brown blues. ... If [Presley's] sin was his lifelessness, it was his sinfulness that brought him to life".

Passage: In Moore's description, the album "seems to have spoken (in a way no other has) for its generation". It is regarded by journalists as having influenced the development of the counterculture of the 1960s. The American psychologist and counterculture figure Timothy Leary labelled the Beatles "avatars of the new world order" and said that the LP "gave a voice to the feeling that the old ways were over" by stressing the need for cultural change based on a peaceful agenda. Ian MacDonald wrote that the album's impact was cross-generational as "Young and old alike were entranced", and era-defining, in that the "psychic shiver" it inspired across the world was "nothing less than a cinematic dissolve from one Zeitgeist to another". He also said that in the context of 1967, Sgt. Pepper conveyed the psychedelic experience so effectively to listeners unfamiliar with hallucinogenic drugs that "If such a thing as a cultural 'contact high' is possible, it happened here." According to author Michael Frontani, the Beatles "legitimiz[ed] the lifestyle of the counterculture", just as they did popular music, and formed the basis of Jann Wenner's scope on these issues when launching Rolling Stone magazine in late 1967.Simon Frith, in his overview of 1967 for The History of Rock, said that Sgt. Pepper had "defined the year" by conveying the optimism and sense of empowerment at the centre of the youth movement. He added that the Velvet Underground's The Velvet Underground & Nico, an album that contrasted sharply with the Beatles' message by "offer[ing] no escape", had become more relevant in a cultural climate typified by "the Sex Pistols, the new political aggression, the rioting in the streets" during the 1970s. In a 1987 review for Q magazine, Charles Shaar Murray asserted that Sgt. Pepper "remains a central pillar of the mythology and iconography of the late '60s", while Colin Larkin states in his Encyclopedia of Popular Music: "[it] turned out to be no mere pop album but a cultural icon, embracing the constituent elements of the 60s' youth culture: pop art, garish fashion, drugs, instant mysticism and freedom from parental control.".

Passage: At age 15, Lennon formed a skiffle group, the Quarrymen. Named after Quarry Bank High School, the group was established by Lennon in September 1956. By the summer of 1957, the Quarrymen played a "spirited set of songs" made up of half skiffle and half rock and roll. Lennon first met Paul McCartney at the Quarrymen's second performance, which was held in Woolton on 6 July at the St Peter's Church garden fête. Lennon then asked McCartney to join the band.McCartney said that Aunt Mimi "was very aware that John's friends were lower class", and would often patronise him when he arrived to visit Lennon. According to McCartney's brother Mike, their father similarly disapproved of Lennon, declaring that Lennon would get his son "into trouble". McCartney's father nevertheless allowed the fledgling band to rehearse in the family's front room at 20 Forthlin Road. During this time, Lennon wrote his first song, "Hello Little Girl", which became a UK top 10 hit for the Fourmost in 1963.McCartney recommended his friend George Harrison to be the lead guitarist. Lennon thought that Harrison, then 14 years old, was too young. McCartney engineered an audition on the upper deck of a Liverpool bus, where Harrison played "Raunchy" for Lennon and was asked to join. Stuart Sutcliffe, Lennon's friend from art school, later joined as bassist. Lennon, McCartney, Harrison and Sutcliffe became "The Beatles" in early 1960. In August that year, the Beatles were engaged for a 48-night residency in Hamburg, in West Germany, and were desperately in need of a drummer. They asked Pete Best to join them. Lennon's aunt, horrified when he told her about the trip, pleaded with Lennon to continue his art studies instead. After the first Hamburg residency, the band accepted another in April 1961, and a third in April 1962. As with the other band members, Lennon was introduced to Preludin while in Hamburg, and regularly took the drug as a stimulant during their long, overnight performances.

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.