Question: Passage: The village's transportation system includes highways, streets, and a rail line; its low population density favors automobiles. Briarcliff Manor is accessible by the controlled-access Taconic State Parkway; it can also be reached by U.S. Route 9, New York State Route 9A and New York State Route 100, which traverse the village north to south. East-west travel is more difficult; Long Hill, Pine, Elm, and Scarborough Roads are narrow, winding, and hilly. Routes 9 and 9A are the most heavily traversed roadways in the village.According to the National Bridge Inventory, Briarcliff Manor has 15 bridges, with estimated daily traffic at 204,000 vehicles. Briarcliff Manor has 64 roads, with a total length of 46.1 miles (74.2 km). Twelve are named after trees, eleven after local residents and eight after veterans, and most have the road type of "lane" or "avenue", while the only "street" in the village is Stafford Street. The village's oldest existing road is Washburn Road, on which is the oldest standing house in the village, Century Homestead. The longest road in the village, at 3 miles (5 km), is Pleasantville Road; the shortest is Pine Court, 175 feet (53 m). Around the time when the Briarcliff Lodge was active, Briarcliff Manor roadways were constructed of macadam and lined with concrete drains and stone fences. Early in Briarcliff Manor's history, the first person to own an automobile was Henry Law (son of Walter Law), who owned a buckboard with an engine.The Metro-North Railroad Hudson Line's Scarborough station offers direct service to New York's Grand Central Terminal, and is the primary public transport to the city. About 750 commuters board southbound trains during the morning rush hour, most driving to the station. Westchester County's Bee-Line Bus System provides service to White Plains, Tarrytown, and Port Chester along Routes 9 and 9A.Rail transportation in the village began in 1880 with the small Whitson's Station on the New York City & Northern Railroad (later the New York and Putnam Railroad); the station was rebuilt by Walter Law in 1906 in the style of his Briarcliff Lodge, with Mission style furniture and rugs. The old station was moved to Millwood, New York around that time to become its station; it fell out of use and was demolished May 9, 2012, although plans exist for the construction of a replica. Law's Briarcliff station became the public library in 1959.

Passage: Like all creeks in Lycoming County, Larrys Creek served as an area for settlers to establish homesteads and farms. As logging became a major industry in the mid-19th century, the creek was a source of power for sawmills and other mills. The first sawmill on the creek, in what is now Mifflin Township, was built in 1799. The relatively low flow of water in the creek did not allow rafts of logs to be floated downstream to the river and the lumber boom at Williamsport (as they were on Pine Creek to the west).This and the lack of logging railroads along the creek led to the development of many small sawmills: the Larrys Creek watershed once had 53 sawmills within 22 miles (35 km) of the mouth (as well as other industries of the time). No other stream in the country had so many sawmills in so small a territory. Twelve sawmills were on the Second Fork, six on the First Fork, one each on Canoe Run and Lawshe Run, and the rest were on Larrys Creek itself. Eight were structures rebuilt on the site of previous sawmills, and only four were steam powered (the rest were water powered). The earliest of these sawmills was built in 1796 (near Seeley Run), the last in 1902 (on Lawshe Run), and by 1903 just two mills were still standing and only one of those was operating.Lumbering removed the tree trunks, but left many flammable limbs, branches, and stumps behind. On May 2, 1872, a large forest fire destroyed the villages of Carter and Gould, 6 miles (9.7 km) north of Salladasburg on Larrys Creek in Mifflin Township. There are large tracts of second growth forest and small lumber companies still operate in the watershed today.

Passage: Briarcliff Manor's original settlement was known as Whitson's Corners for brothers John H., Richard, and Reuben Whitson, who owned adjoining farms in the area totaling 400 acres (160 ha). Whitson's Corners was named after the corner of Pleasantville and South State Roads, where John H. Whitson's house, the Crossways, stood from 1820 until the 1940s. The Briarcliff Congregational Church's parish house currently stands at its former location. The neighboring community of Scarborough was known as Weskora until it was renamed in 1864, after resident William Kemey's ancestral hometown in Yorkshire. After the community was incorporated into Briarcliff Manor in 1906, the New York Central and Hudson River Railroad put up a sign reading "Briarcliff West" at the village's Scarborough station. Soon afterward, attributed to the neighborhood's pride over their name, that sign was thrown into the Hudson River and replaced with the original Scarborough sign.Briarcliff Manor derives from "Brier Cliff", a compound of the English words "brier" and "cliff". The name originated in Ireland as that of the family home of John David Ogilby, a professor of ecclesiastical history at the General Theological Seminary. Ogilby had named his New York summer home Brier Cliff after his family home in Ireland. In 1890, Walter Law bought James Stillman's 236-acre (96 ha) Briarcliff Farm and further developed it, later using the name Briarcliff for all his property. Law's friend, Andrew Carnegie, called him "The Laird of Briarcliff Manor"; since the title appealed to all concerned, the village was named "Briarcliff Manor". By 1897, the village post office and railroad station bore the name Briarcliff Manor. The village (and its name) were approved by its residents in a September 12, 1902 referendum; the name prevailed over other suggestions, including "Sing Sing East". On November 21, 1902, the village of Briarcliff Manor was established.The village is also known by several other names. It is conversationally called "Briarcliff", and often erroneously written as "Briar Cliff Manor" (although historically there has been little distinction). The village has been called "Briarcliff on the Hudson" by Mark Twain and Aileen Riggin; it is also known as "the Village of Briarcliff Manor". The name Briarcliff has also been applied to other municipalities, including the 470-person town of Briarcliffe Acres in South Carolina; in naming it, the town's founder had drawn inspiration from Briarcliff Manor's name.

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 Verona Beach, the Capulets and Montagues are rivals. The animosity of the older generation—Fulgencio and Gloria Capulet and Ted and Caroline Montague—is felt by their younger relatives. A gunfight between Montagues led by Benvolio, Romeo's cousin, and Capulets led by Tybalt, Juliet's cousin, creates chaos in the city. The Chief of Police, Captain Prince, reprimands the families, warning them that their lives "shall pay the forfeit of the peace".
Benvolio and Romeo learn of a Capulet party that evening which they decide to gate-crash. Romeo agrees on hearing that Rosaline, with whom he is in love, is attending. They meet their friend, Mercutio, who has tickets to the party, and Romeo takes ecstasy as they proceed to the Capulet mansion. The effects of the drug and the party overwhelm Romeo, who goes to the restroom. While admiring an aquarium, he sees Juliet on the other side, and the two instantly fall in love, both unaware who the other is. Tybalt spots Romeo and vows to kill him for invading his family's home.
After Romeo leaves the party, he and Juliet each learn that they belong to feuding families, but Romeo sneaks back to see her. Juliet tells him that if he sends word by the following day, they will be betrothed. The next day, Romeo asks Father Laurence to marry them, and he agrees, hoping their marriage will end the feud. Romeo passes the word on via Juliet's nurse and the lovers are married.
Tybalt encounters Mercutio and Romeo at the beach. Romeo attempts to make peace, but Tybalt assaults him. Mercutio intervenes and is about to kill Tybalt when Romeo stops him. Tybalt uses the opportunity to inflict a deadly wound on Mercutio, who curses both houses before dying. Enraged, Romeo chases after a fleeing Tybalt and guns him down.

Passage: A young American man arrives in Palermo by plane. A taxi driver at the airport immediately gets word to Frank Ginetta, who hides, armed with a gun, until he realizes that the visitor he's been warned about is actually his younger brother Vinnie.
Frank happily welcomes his brother and takes him home, catching up on old times. But his wife, Ida, reminds him that "they're going to send someone," suggesting that perhaps Vinnie is the one.
In a flashback, Frank recalls better times in New York City, beginning with Vinnie's homecoming from military service and subsequent marriage to Emma Bertolo. The father of the bride, Dominick Bertolo is a Mafia don, as is the groom's brother, Frank. And among those paying their respects as guests at the wedding are mob leaders like Egan, Rotherman and Levin, who are the equals of Frank and Dominick in the New York region's organized crime.
These capos within the Organization meet as a board to coordinate their business. The majority becomes increasingly unhappy with Frank's position, as he seems opposed to every new idea. Frank also dispenses justice on his own in the old Sicilian fashion, without seeking approval from the others. They, not being of Sicilian origin, are trying to leave behind the old traditional methods, such as when two of Frank's hit men kill a stool pigeon in the marshes and leave him tied to a chair with a canary stuffed in his mouth, as a warning to others who might talk too much.
Frank still fondly remembers his father, who also was a mafioso who was assassinated in a hit. Vinnie is more of a businessman, and takes sides with the other board members in ventures they intend to pursue without his brother. Frank resents this, striking Vinnie for defying him and insisting to the board that Vinnie will have no part in what they have planned.

Passage: Wealthy American businessman Robert Talbot owns a villa on the Ligurian coast, where he and his Roman mistress Lisa Fellini spend September of each year. When Robert moves up his annual visit to July and calls her en route from Milano, she cancels her wedding to Englishman Spencer and rushes to meet him. Upon his arrival at the villa, Robert discovers that, in his absence, his major domo, Maurice Clavell, has turned the villa into a hotel, currently hosting a group of teenage girls, including Sandy, and their chaperone, Margaret Allison. Their departure is delayed when Margaret slips on the cork of a champagne bottle opened by Robert and is forced to spend a day in the hospital. Four teenage boys who irritated Robert on the drive to his villa, including Tony, set up camp right outside of the villa and begin courting the girls.
Robert chaperones the girls on a sightseeing tour and to a music club. He dances with each of the girls and appeals to their virtues, stressing the importance of chastity. Trying to get Robert inebriated, the boys end up drunk themselves. Sandy revives Tony, but slaps him when he makes a pass at her. She then recounts the lecture received earlier to Lisa, who gets infuriated over Robert's double standards. The next morning, she leaves to get back together with Spencer. A sobered-up Tony apologizes to Robert.

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: Doug is a flight instructor and owner of a pilot school. He, his wife Abby and their two daughters, Lindsay and Amanda face serious financial problems, as they are near financial ruin, and need $300,000 to expand the pilot school.
Doug has to work hard and has hardly any time for his family, even arriving at home late on Christmas Eve. During the meal Doug receives a phone call from a lawyer who informs him that his parents are not his biological parents, but that he was adopted by an open adoption by them. The lawyer asks him to come to a meeting, where problems concerning his biological father are to be discussed.
The lawyer introduces him to his half sister, Delilah, who was disowned from their father. Her only interest is to have her father judged unfit in order to sell his property. The lawyer asks whether they want to look after the property and their father. If they would, they would also take responsibility of him. Doug decides to do so without asking Abby.

Passage: Suzanne, is a well-to-do married woman and mother of two in the south of France. Her idle bourgeois lifestyle begins to depress her, and she decides to go back to work as a physiotherapist. Her husband, Samuel, agrees to fix up a consulting room for her in their backyard. When Suzanne and Ivan, a Spanish ex-con hired to do the building, meet, their mutual attraction is sudden and violent.
After multiple trysts with Ivan, she confesses the affair to her husband, and she promises to give it up, but finds she cannot. She finally decides to give up everything and live her all-engulfing passion for Ivan to the fullest, but her husband will not let go of her; her daughter rejects her, although her son stays connected to her. The new couple soon face severe financial problems, some of them caused by Samuel: when her credit card is rejected, she is forced to sell her Cartier watch at a gas station. In their extreme need, Suzanne and Ivan rob Samuel's house of its paintings and valuables, but Ivan is arrested when he fences the stolen goods for them. Suzanne tries to convince her husband that she was solely responsible for the burglary, and that she only took what was hers. She offers to do anything to keep Ivan out of jail, and her husband tells her that if she comes home, Ivan will be free. At this dilemma, she faints.
Back in their home, Suzanne is distant with her family, yet tolerant of her husband's sexual advances. Soon, though, she takes a rifle and shells from a closet, and kills Samuel as he sleeps. Driving through the night, she is eventually reunited with Ivan at the ruined house in the hills they had once dreamed of restoring. They embrace and she sobs hysterically. In the distance, a police siren can be heard.

Passage: Joy Linnett and her stepsister Jackie miss a flight home to Ohio, but the attractive Joy, accustomed to getting her way with men, flirts with pilot Stevie Wilson until he agrees to personally fly the two young women.
At home, old beau Warren James comes calling and invites Jackie to a country club's dance. As soon as Joy emerges in a swimsuit, the smitten Warren not only neglects Jackie, he invites her sister to the dance.
A quarrel ensues between the women's parents. Jackie's dad is outraged by the way his daughter is treated, but Joy's mom says he's just miffed that her daughter is more popular than his.
Stevie calls out of the blue, giving Jackie an idea. She emulates her sister's behavior and wardrobe, persuading Stevie to accompany her to the dance. Once there, all the men get a look at the new Jackie and line up to dance with her, as sister Joy looks on, delighted. Now it is Warren who is neglected, so much so that he gets drunk and proposes marriage to both sisters. In the end, he comes to appreciate that Jackie is the one he really loves.

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: Sensitive, club-footed artist Philip Carey is a Briton who has been studying painting in Paris for four years. His art teacher tells him his work lacks talent, so he returns to London to become a medical doctor, but his moodiness and chronic self-doubt make it difficult for him to keep up in his schoolwork.
Philip falls passionately in love with vulgar tearoom waitress Mildred Rogers, even though she is disdainful of his club foot and his obvious interest in her. Although he is attracted to the anemic and pale-faced woman, she is manipulative and cruel toward him when he asks her out. Her constant response to his romantic invitations is "I don't mind," an expression so uninterested that it infuriates him – which only causes her to use it all the more. His daydreams about her (her image appears over an illustration in his medical school anatomy textbook, and a skeleton in the classroom is transformed into Mildred) cause him to be distracted from his studies, and he fails his medical examinations.
When Philip proposes to her, Mildred declines, telling him she will be marrying a loutish salesman Emil Miller instead. The self-centered Mildred vindictively berates Philip with nasty insults for becoming romantically interested in her.
Philip begins to forget Mildred when he falls in love with Norah, an attractive and considerate romance writer working under a male pseudonym. She slowly cures him of his painful addiction to Mildred. But just when it appears that Philip is finding happiness, Mildred returns, pregnant and claiming that Emil has abandoned her.
Philip provides a flat for her, arranges to take care of her financially, and breaks off his relationship with Norah. Norah and Philip admit how interpersonal relationships may amount to bondage (Philip was bound to Mildred, as Norah was to Philip, and as Mildred was to Miller).

Passage: Travis Shaw is a veterinarian, living in the city of Wilmington, NC, who falls in love on his first meeting with Gabby Holland, who has moved into the house next door. Gabby is a medical student who is in a relationship with a fellow doctor, Ryan McCarthy. With Ryan out of state overseeing a new hospital opening, Gabby and Travis spend more time together, starting a relationship.
Ryan returns, and is keen to resume his relationship with Gabby. Unsure of her feelings, Gabby tells Travis that their relationship wasn't necessarily serious, so she says Yes to Ryan's marriage proposal. Monica breaks up with Travis telling him she knows about him and Gabby, and that he should fight for her because they love each other. Travis goes to the hospital, only to find out Gabby left after she broke off her engagement with Ryan. Ryan punches him for the affair. Travis then goes to Gabby's family home to propose to her. After convincing her of his love, she says yes. They marry and over the course of the next few years they have two children and become a happy family.
One evening, after a dinner to which Travis has failed to show due to a work emergency, Gabby drives back home but is involved in an accident with another car. She survives but is now in a coma, which seems permanent. Travis, wracked with guilt, has to decide whether to take her off life support.

Passage: Candaules, King of Lydia, Shews his Wife by Stealth to Gyges, One of his Ministers, as She Goes to Bed, occasionally formerly known as The Imprudence of Candaules, is a 45.1 by 55.9 cm (17.8 by 22.0 in) oil painting on canvas by English artist William Etty, first exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1830. It shows a scene from the Histories by Herodotus, in which Candaules, king of Lydia, invites his bodyguard Gyges to hide in the couple's bedroom and watch his wife Nyssia undress, to prove to him her beauty. Nyssia notices Gyges spying and challenges him to either accept his own execution or to kill Candaules as a punishment. Gyges chooses to kill Candaules and take his place as king. The painting shows the moment at which Nyssia, still unaware that she is being watched by anyone other than her husband, removes the last of her clothes.
Etty hoped that his audience would take from the painting the moral lesson that women are not chattels and that men infringing on their rights should justly be punished, but he made little effort to explain this to audiences. The painting was immediately controversial and perceived as a cynical combination of a pornographic image and a violent and unpleasant narrative, and it was condemned as an immoral piece of the type one would expect from a foreign, not a British, artist. It was bought by Robert Vernon on its exhibition, and in 1847 was one of a number of paintings given by Vernon to the nation. The work retained its controversial reputation in later years, and when The Art Journal bought the reproduction rights to Vernon's former collection in 1849 they did not distribute reproductions of Candaules. In 1929 it was among several paintings transferred to the newly expanded Tate Gallery, where as of 2018 it remains.

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 Wrestlers is an oil painting on millboard by English artist William Etty, painted around 1840 and currently in the York Art Gallery, in York, England. It depicts a wrestling match between a black man and a white man, both glistening with sweat and under an intense light emphasising their curves and musculature. While little documentation of the painting exists prior to 1947, it is likely that it was painted over a period of three evenings at the life class of the Royal Academy.
The Royal Academy had moved to new premises in Trafalgar Square in 1837, and the studio used by the life class was cramped and hot, a fact thought to account for the sweatiness of the central figures. Etty was best known for his painting of nude or near-nude women in historical and mythological settings but had also painted men involved in various forms of combat.
In the period in which The Wrestlers was painted, sports were becoming increasingly popular, and the painting is both a reflection of this trend and a part of the English tradition of copying poses from classical Hellenistic works. It was also a time of change in the British attitude to race relations. Etty in this period was generally making a conscious effort to illustrate moral lessons in his work, and it is not clear whether he chose the topic as a form of social commentary or simply because the contrast between the black and white flesh tones was visually striking.
Although The Wrestlers was probably exhibited as part of a major retrospective of Etty's work in 1849, it then went into a private collection and was not publicly exhibited again for almost a century. In 1947 it was put on sale; with little interest from commercial galleries owing to its subject, it was bought for the bargain price of 30 guineas by the York Art Gallery, where it remains. The painting formed a part of major exhibitions in 2002 and 2011–12.

Passage: The Wrestlers is an oil study from life, depicting a black and a white wrestler grappling. Although at first glance the white wrestler appears to be dominant, the figures are in fact equally matched; this was unusual for the time, as it was a common belief in Britain in this period that black people were physically weaker than whites. Showing the subjects under bright light, the painting is a combination of intense juxtapositions between intimacy and violence, dark and light skin, and hard and soft surfaces. The black wrestler is naked; the white wrestler wears a loincloth, although it is possible that this was added after Etty's death. The intense light casts deep shadows, emphasising the curves and musculature of the wrestlers' bodies, as the skin of the two combatants is stretched and distorted under the pressure of the grapple. The figures are set against a dark green curtain and a brown wall, rather than in a wrestling ring.The identity of the wrestlers is not known. Alison Smith, Lead Curator of British Art to 1900 at Tate, speculates that the white figure may have been John Wilton of Somerset, who had possibly been the model for Little John in Daniel Maclise's 1839 Robin Hood and His Merry Men Entertaining Richard the Lionheart in Sherwood Forest. The figures glisten with sweat. Art historian Sarah Victoria Turner speculates that this is not simply for dramatic effect, but reflects the fact that after the Royal Academy's 1837 move to its new building in Trafalgar Square the studio used by the life class was a cramped and poorly ventilated room lit by gaslight, which when crowded with students and with the lights on could become extremely hot.
The Wrestlers is thought to have been painted in around 1840. It is likely that it was executed at the Royal Academy's life class; despite his senior status, Etty continued to attend there throughout his life. While students at the class usually worked from a single model, Etty would occasionally arrange for "a Treat", in which a group of models would be used to create an entire composition for the students to sketch (often arranged in poses derived from Old Master paintings). Painted on millboard, The Wrestlers was probably executed over the course of three evenings. On the first evening Etty would have drawn the models in chalk or charcoal and inked the outline; on the second evening the figures would have been painted in oil paint, and on the third evening a thin glaze would have been applied to the painting to which colour would then have been added.

Passage: William Etty (1787–1849), the seventh son of a York baker and miller, had originally been an apprentice printer in Hull, but on completing his seven-year apprenticeship at the age of 18 moved to London to become an artist. Strongly influenced by the works of Titian and Rubens, he submitted a number of paintings to the Royal Academy of Arts and the British Institution, all of which were either rejected outright or drew little attention when exhibited. In 1821 he finally achieved recognition when the Royal Academy accepted and exhibited one of his works, The Arrival of Cleopatra in Cilicia (also known as The Triumph of Cleopatra). Cleopatra was extremely well received, and many of Etty's fellow artists greatly admired him. He was elected a full Royal Academician in 1828, beating John Constable to the position.Following the success of Cleopatra, over the next decade, Etty tried to replicate its success by painting nude figures in biblical, literary and mythological settings. Between 1820 and 1829 Etty exhibited 15 paintings, of which 14 depicted nude figures. While some nude paintings by foreign artists existed in private collections, England had no tradition of nude painting and the display and distribution of nude material to the public had been suppressed since the 1787 Proclamation for the Discouragement of Vice. Etty was the first British artist to specialise in nude studies, and although his portraits of male nudes were generally well received, many critics condemned his repeated depictions of female nudity as indecent.

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: Belarus is a presidential republic, governed by a president and the National Assembly. The term for each presidency is five years. Under the 1994 constitution, the president could serve for only two terms as president, but a change in the constitution in 2004 eliminated term limits. Alexander Lukashenko has been the president of Belarus since 1994. In 1996, Lukashenko called for a controversial vote to extend the presidential term from five to seven years, and as a result the election that was supposed to occur in 1999 was pushed back to 2001. The referendum on the extension was denounced as a "fantastic" fake by the chief electoral officer, Viktar Hanchar, who was removed from the office for official matters only during the campaign. The National Assembly is a bicameral parliament comprising the 110-member House of Representatives (the lower house) and the 64-member Council of the Republic (the upper house).
The House of Representatives has the power to appoint the prime minister, make constitutional amendments, call for a vote of confidence on the prime minister, and make suggestions on foreign and domestic policy. The Council of the Republic has the power to select various government officials, conduct an impeachment trial of the president, and accept or reject the bills passed by the House of Representatives. Each chamber has the ability to veto any law passed by local officials if it is contrary to the constitution.The government includes a Council of Ministers, headed by the prime minister and five deputy prime ministers. The members of this council need not be members of the legislature and are appointed by the president. The judiciary comprises the Supreme Court and specialized courts such as the Constitutional Court, which deals with specific issues related to constitutional and business law. The judges of national courts are appointed by the president and confirmed by the Council of the Republic. For criminal cases, the highest court of appeal is the Supreme Court. The Belarusian Constitution forbids the use of special extrajudicial courts.In the 2012 parliamentary election, 105 of the 110 members elected to the House of Representatives were not affiliated with any political party. The Communist Party of Belarus won 3 seats, and the Agrarian Party and Republican Party of Labour and Justice, one each. Most non-partisans represent a wide scope of social organizations such as workers' collectives, public associations, and civil society organizations, similar to the composition of the Soviet legislature.

Passage: The Byelorussian SSR was one of the two Soviet republics that joined the United Nations along with the Ukrainian SSR as one of the original 51 members in 1945. After the dissolution of the Soviet Union, under international law, Belarus became the internationally recognized successor state to the Byelorussian SSR, retaining its UN membership.
Belarus and Russia have been close trading partners and diplomatic allies since the breakup of the Soviet Union. Belarus is dependent on Russia for imports of raw materials and for its export market.The union of Russia and Belarus, a supranational confederation, was established in a 1996–99 series of treaties that called for monetary union, equal rights, single citizenship, and a common foreign and defense policy. However, the future of the union has been placed in doubt because of Belarus's repeated delays of monetary union, the lack of a referendum date for the draft constitution, and a dispute over the petroleum trade.On 11 December 2007, reports emerged that a framework for the new state was discussed between both countries. On 27 May 2008, Belarusian President Lukashenko said that he had named Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin the "prime minister" of the Russia-Belarus alliance. The significance of this act was not immediately clear; some incorrectly speculated that Putin would become president of a unified state of Russia and Belarus after stepping down as Russian president in May 2008.Belarus was a founding member of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS). Belarus has trade agreements with several European Union member states (despite other member states' travel ban on Lukashenko and top officials), including neighboring Latvia, Lithuania, and Poland. Travel bans imposed by the European Union have been lifted in the past in order to allow Lukashenko to attend diplomatic meetings and also to engage his government and opposition groups in dialogue.

Passage: On 5 March 1953, Joseph Stalin died, ushering in a period of moderate liberalization, when most European communist parties developed a reform wing. In Hungary, the reformist Imre Nagy replaced Rákosi, "Stalin's Best Hungarian Disciple", as Prime Minister. However, Rákosi remained General Secretary of the Party, and was able to undermine most of Nagy's reforms. By April 1955, he had Nagy discredited and removed from office. After Khrushchev's "secret speech" of February 1956, which denounced Stalin and his protégés, Rákosi was deposed as General Secretary of the Party and replaced by Ernő Gerő on 18 July 1956. Radio Free Europe (RFE) broadcast the "secret speech" to Eastern Europe on the advice of Ray S. Cline, who saw it as a way to, "as I think I told [Allen Dulles] to say, 'indict the whole Soviet system'."On 14 May 1955, the Soviet Union created the Warsaw Pact, binding Hungary to the Soviet Union and its satellite states in Central and Eastern Europe. Among the principles of this alliance were "respect for the independence and sovereignty of states" and "non-interference in their internal affairs".In 1955, the Austrian State Treaty and ensuing declaration of neutrality established Austria as a demilitarised and neutral country. This raised Hungarian hopes of also becoming neutral and in 1955 Nagy had considered "the possibility of Hungary adopting a neutral status on the Austrian pattern".In June 1956, a violent uprising by Polish workers in Poznań was put down by the government, with scores of protesters killed and wounded. Responding to popular demand, in October 1956, the government appointed the recently rehabilitated reformist communist Władysław Gomułka as First Secretary of the Polish United Workers' Party, with a mandate to negotiate trade concessions and troop reductions with the Soviet government. After a few tense days of negotiations, on 19 October the Soviets finally gave in to Gomułka's reformist demands. News of the concessions won by the Poles, known as Polish October, emboldened many Hungarians to hope for similar concessions for Hungary and these sentiments contributed significantly to the highly charged political climate that prevailed in Hungary in the second half of October 1956.

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 1969, American rock musician Jimi Hendrix, who was then at the height of his career, was arrested, tried, and acquitted in Canada for drug possession.
On May 3, 1969, customs agents at Toronto International Airport detained Hendrix after finding a small amount of what they suspected to be heroin and hashish in his luggage. Four hours later, after a mobile lab confirmed what had been found, he was formally charged with drug possession. Released on $10,000 bail, Hendrix was required to return on May 5 for an arraignment hearing. During a performance at Maple Leaf Gardens later that night, he displayed a jovial attitude, joking with the audience and singing a few lines of mock opera for comedic effect.
At a preliminary hearing on June 19, Judge Robert Taylor set a date for December 8, at which Hendrix would stand trial for two counts of illegal possession of narcotics, for which he faced as many as 20 years in prison. While there was no question as to whether the drugs were in Hendrix's luggage, in order for the Crown to prove possession they had to show that he knew they were there. In his cross-examination of Canadian customs officials, defense attorney John O'Driscoll raised doubts about whether the narcotics belonged to Hendrix, who had no drug paraphernalia in his luggage or needle tracks on his arms. After a trial that lasted for three days, the jury deliberated for 8 hours before returning a not guilty verdict, acquitting Hendrix of both charges.
The incident proved stressful for Hendrix, and it weighed heavily on his mind during the seven months that he awaited trial. Two weeks after the arrest, he told his friend, journalist Sharon Lawrence, that his fear of needles discouraged him from using heroin and that associating with junkies had convinced him it was not a drug he wanted to use. Both of Hendrix's Experience bandmates, Mitch Mitchell and Noel Redding, later stated that they had been warned about a planned drug bust the day before flying to Toronto and they believed that drugs had been planted in Hendrix's bag. Although Hendrix was one of the biggest stars in North America at the time, and the world's highest-paid performer, only a couple of Toronto newspapers carried the story. His public relations manager, Michael Goldstein, later revealed that he bribed a member of the Associated Press with a case of liquor in an effort to prevent the story from going out on the news wire.

Passage: The incident proved stressful for Hendrix, and it weighed heavily on his mind while he awaited trial. His limousine driver and a witness to the arrest, Louis Goldblatt, described him as "genuinely dumbfounded by the whole affair." Tour manager Eric Barrett said that he looked "as if there had been a plane crash". Hendrix biographers Harry Shapiro and Caesar Glebbeek described the incident as "a nightmare which ... plagued" him for seven months. According to Redding, "the bust knocked any positive feelings Jimi was holding onto out of him" and that he was in "agonised suspense" from the arrest until the trial. In 2012, Plummer wrote: "The real possibility of prison hung over Hendrix like a spectre ... a threat to his career and the cause of much brooding and rumination." Journalist Charles Shaar Murray asserted that the incident jeopardized what he described as "Hendrix's increasingly fragile peace of mind".
Two weeks after the arrest, Hendrix told Lawrence: "Whatever I have done ... getting hooked on heroin is not one of them." He explained that his fear of needles discouraged him from using the drug and that having known junkies convinced him that it was not something he should get involved with. Soon after the story of his arrest became public, he drew a connection between the bust and anti-establishment sentiments: "All of that is the establishment fighting back ... Eventually, they will swallow themselves up, but I don't want them to swallow up too many kids as they go along."According to Shapiro and Glebbeek, in 1969 there was little confidence in the staying power of rock stars; it was assumed that their careers were going to be short, and industry insiders operated under a "take the money and run" mentality. For this reason, they speculated that had Hendrix been convicted it would have ended his music career. After the trial, his management announced to the British press that they were planning a farewell tour for the Experience. However, the US tour during which the arrest occurred was their last. The band played their final concert on June 29, at Mile High Stadium in Denver (less than two months before Hendrix's iconic solo performance at Woodstock). There were no new album releases from them during 1969. Hendrix's management later stated that concert promoters were apprehensive about booking him until after the matter had been resolved.

Passage: After landing at Toronto International Airport on May 3, 1969, Hendrix and Terry were the last to exit the plane. Ruffino was carrying Hendrix's bags, and he placed them on a counter at the customs station. An agent immediately chastised him, shouting: "If that's not yours, keep your hands off it", to which Ruffino replied: "I work for him." The agent repeated the order before asking Hendrix if they were his bags; he confirmed that they were. At 9:30 a.m., authorities detained Hendrix after finding a small amount of what they suspected to be heroin and hashish in his luggage. A mobile lab was set up to determine what had been found, and at 1:30 p.m. Metro police detective Harry Midgley arrested him for illegal possession of narcotics. After being booked, fingerprinted, and photographed, he was released on $10,000 bail and required to return on May 5 for an arraignment hearing.  While they awaited the lab results, Stickells attempted to make contact with Hendrix's manager, Mike Jeffery, who had traveled to Hawaii and was unavailable.When Stickells expressed concern that the arrest might jeopardize the concert that was scheduled for that night at Maple Leaf Gardens, the booking detective assured them that he would "get it done as quickly" as he could because his children had tickets for the event; he commented: "they'll kill me if I don't get [Hendrix] out." Management at the Gardens pressured the Toronto police department to release him, complaining that the sell-out crowd of 18,000 fans might riot if they canceled the show. He was released by 8 p.m. and escorted to the venue by the police, who remained at the arena throughout the performance. He displayed a jovial attitude during the concert, joking with the audience and singing in a mock operatic style for comedic effect. In light of the arrest, he altered the lyrics to "Red House", singing "soon as I get out of jail, I wanna see her."Rolling Stone magazine reported that during the arraignment hearing, which lasted for three minutes, the courthouse was filled with young fans who had come to show their support for Hendrix, who "entered wearing a pink shirt open to the waist, an Apache-style headband, a multi-colored scarf around his neck and beads. His manner was dead serious.".

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: Etty considered Britomart Redeems Faire Amoret one of his major works.
Following its exhibition at the 1833 Summer Exhibition, it was exhibited in August of the same year at the Royal Manchester Institution. It was sold at this second exhibition for £157 (about £15,000 in today's terms) to an anonymous collector listed in Etty's records only as "Mr. L., Manchester". It was one of 133 Etty paintings exhibited in a major retrospective exhibition of his work at the Royal Society of Arts in June–August 1849; during this exhibition it was sold on to Lord Charles Townshend for a sum of 520 guineas (about £56,000 in today's terms).Etty died in 1849, having continued working and exhibiting up to his death, and continued to be regarded by many as a pornographer. Charles Robert Leslie observed shortly after Etty's death that "[Etty] himself, thinking and meaning no evil, was not aware of the manner in which his works were regarded by grosser minds". Interest in him declined as new movements came to characterise painting in Britain, and by the end of the 19th century the sales prices achieved by his paintings were falling below the original values.

Passage: Failing to sell at the Summer Exhibition, The Combat was bought from Etty by fellow artist John Martin for 300 guineas (about £24,000 in 2019 terms), following a promise Martin had made to Etty before the painting was complete. The painting was too large for Martin's house, and in 1831 he sold it on to the Royal Scottish Academy. It was transferred in 1910 to the nearby National Gallery of Scotland where it remains. One of Etty's major works, it was exhibited at numerous major exhibitions including the seminal Art Treasures Exhibition of 1857, before Etty fell out of fashion in the second half of the 19th century.
Throughout his life, The Combat continued to be considered one of Etty's most powerful paintings. In 1845, Etty took a smaller 89 by 118 cm (35 by 46 in) copy of The Combat, which had been painted by an unknown Edinburgh artist, and completely reworked it to serve as the basis for an engraving by George Thomas Doo. The engraving was published three years later, and the painting used as its model passed through the hands of several collectors in subsequent years, before entering the collection of the Ringling Museum in 1934. A number of sketches attributed to Etty, under the name of A Study for Mercy Interceding for the Vanquished, are also in circulation.After the success of The Combat, Etty continued with his preferred theme of history paintings containing nudity; of the 15 pictures he exhibited at the Royal Academy during the 1820s (including Cleopatra, Pandora and The Combat) all but one contained a nude figure. He was elected a full Royal Academician in 1828, at that time the most prestigious honour available to an artist. The Combat was the first very large work attempted by Etty, and its success prompted him to produce further works on a similar scale over the rest of his career; he produced nine very large paintings illustrating moral themes throughout his career. As time went by his canvases came to be increasingly dominated by nude women.The 1832 exhibition of Youth on the Prow, and Pleasure at the Helm, a painting containing apparently gratuitous nude figures, met a hostile reception from critics. From then on, while Etty continued to paint nude figures for the rest of his career, he made a conscious effort to try to illustrate moral lessons with his work. This effort was not wholly successful, and he continued to be regarded as a pornographer by some throughout his career. He died in late 1849, and following his death nude paintings went rapidly out of fashion in Britain.

Passage: In February 1828, shortly before his 41st birthday, Etty soundly defeated John Constable by 18 votes to five to become a full Royal Academician, at the time the highest honour available to an artist. By this time, complaints about his supposed indecency were beginning to resurface. All but one of the 15 paintings Etty exhibited at the Royal Academy in the 1820s had included at least one nude figure, and Etty was acquiring a reputation for using respectable themes as a pretext for nudity.For the 1828 Summer Exhibition Etty exhibited three pictures; The World Before the Flood, Venus, the Evening Star and Guardian Cherubs. (The latter was a portrait of the children of Welbore Ellis Agar, 2nd Earl of Normanton, and was the only non-nude painting exhibited by Etty at the RA in the 1820s.) Although similar to his earlier works, they were technically more accomplished. Both The World Before the Flood and Venus attracted positive reviews in the press and were sold during their exhibition for substantial sums, although the purchase by the Marquess of Stafford of The World Before the Flood—a work containing scantily clad figures of both sexes—drew a pointed comment in The Gentleman's Magazine that it "will serve to accompany the private Titians of that nobleman". Despite the increasing number of complaints in the press about his use of nudity, respect for Etty from his fellow artists continued to rise, and in 1828 the British Institution awarded him £100 in recognition of his talent.
As soon as the 1828 Summer Exhibition was over, Etty stopped work on other projects to concentrate on a diploma piece, without which he could not become a Royal Academician. This piece, Sleeping Nymph and Satyrs, was presented to the Academy in October, and in December 1828 Etty became a Royal Academician.
It appears to me then that virtuous happiness being our lawful aim in life, that having Academic Rank and Fame the next thing to be considered (if God approve) is to seek that Decent Competency which shall make my latter days comfortable and happy, which I hope if it please Him, to be able to do by the time I am fifty—by occasionally mixing with my historic pictures a Portrait or two, and to vary and extend my sphere—a classic Landscape or two so that if I can get about 100 a year I may be enabled to retire to my dear native city and spend my latter days in peace.

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 Late Preclassic tomb has been excavated, believed to be a royal burial. This tomb has been designated Burial 1; it was found during excavations of Structure 7A and was inserted into the centre of this Middle Preclassic structure. The burial is also associated with Stela 13 and with a massive offering of more than 600 ceramic vessels and other artifacts found at the base of Structure 7A. These ceramics date the offering to the end of the Late Preclassic. No human remains have been recovered but the find is assumed to be a burial due to the associated artifacts. The body is believed to have been interred upon a litter measuring 1 by 2 metres (3.3 by 6.6 ft), which was probably made of wood and coated in red cinnabar dust. Grave goods include an 18-piece jade necklace, two earspools coated in cinnabar, various mosaic mirrors made from iron pyrite, one consisting of more than 800 pieces, a jade mosaic mask, two prismatic obsidian blades, a finely carved greenstone fish, various beads that presumably formed jewellery such as bracelets and a selection of ceramics that date the tomb to AD 100–200.In October 2012, a tomb carbon-dated between 700 BC and 400 BC was reported to have been found in Takalik Abaj of a ruler nicknamed K'utz Chman ("Grandfather Vulture" in Mam) by archaeologists, a sacred king or "big chief" who "bridged the gap between the Olmec and Mayan cultures in Central America," according to Miguel Orrego. The tomb is suggested to be the oldest Maya royal burial to have been discovered so far.

Passage: The only source from which Abuwtiyuw is known is a stone inscription tablet that may have come from the funerary chapel of the dog's owner. The tablet was apparently among spolia used to build another grave in approximately 2280 BC, a sixth-Dynasty mastaba, after the chapel's demolition. It was discovered on 13 October 1935 by Egyptologist George A. Reisner during a joint Harvard University-Boston Museum of Fine Arts expedition, and removed from the site four days later.The find was recorded by the main expedition photographer, Mohammedani Ibrahim, who took more than 9,321 large-format glass-plate images on Reisner's expeditions. The tablet is now held by the Egyptian Museum in Cairo (inventory number JE 67573).Neither the dog's grave nor mummy have been recovered. The tomb in which the tablet was unearthed is in Cemetery G 2100 in Giza West Field, close to the western side of the Great Pyramid of Giza (Pyramid of Khufu/Kheops). The white limestone tablet measures 54.2×28.2×23.2 cm (21.3×11.1×9.1 in) and is inscribed with ten vertical rows of hieroglyphs, separated from each other by vertical lines. Part of a leash is visible on the upper-right corner, suggesting that the tablet displayed an image of Abuwtiyuw with his owner.The text of the inscription translated by Reisner describes the gifts offered by the pharaoh in tribute at Abuwtiyuw's funeral:
The dog which was the guard of His Majesty, Abuwtiyuw is his name. His Majesty ordered that he be buried (ceremonially), that he be given a coffin from the royal treasury, fine linen in great quantity, (and) incense. His Majesty (also) gave perfumed ointment, and (ordered) that a tomb be built for him by the gangs of masons. His Majesty did this for him in order that he (the dog) might be Honoured (before the great god, Anubis).

Passage: The stele was erected after the coronation of King Ptolemy V and was inscribed with a decree that established the divine cult of the new ruler. The decree was issued by a congress of priests who gathered at Memphis. The date is given as "4 Xandicus" in the Macedonian calendar and "18 Meshir" in the Egyptian calendar, which corresponds to March 27, 196 BC. The year is stated as the ninth year of Ptolemy V's reign (equated with 197/196 BC), which is confirmed by four named priests  who officiated in that same year: Aëtus son of Aëtus was priest of the divine cults of Alexander the Great and the five Ptolemies down to Ptolemy V himself; his three colleagues, named in turn in the inscription, led the worship of Berenice Euergetis (wife of Ptolemy III), Arsinoe Philadelphos (wife and sister of Ptolemy II), and Arsinoe Philopator, mother of Ptolemy V. However, a second date is also given in the Greek and hieroglyphic texts, corresponding to 27 November 197 BC, the official anniversary of Ptolemy's coronation. The inscription in demotic conflicts with this, listing consecutive days in March for the decree and the anniversary. It is uncertain why such discrepancies exist, but it is clear that the decree was issued in 196 BC and that it was designed to re-establish the rule of the Ptolemaic kings over Egypt.The decree was issued during a turbulent period in Egyptian history. Ptolemy V Epiphanes reigned from 204 to 181 BC, the son of Ptolemy IV Philopator and his wife and sister Arsinoe. He had become ruler at the age of five after the sudden death of both of his parents, who were murdered in a conspiracy that involved Ptolemy IV's mistress Agathoclea, according to contemporary sources. The conspirators effectively ruled Egypt as Ptolemy V's guardians until a revolt broke out two years later under general Tlepolemus, when Agathoclea and her family were lynched by a mob in Alexandria. Tlepolemus, in turn, was replaced as guardian in 201 BC by Aristomenes of Alyzia, who was chief minister at the time of the Memphis decree.Political forces beyond the borders of Egypt exacerbated the internal problems of the Ptolemaic kingdom. Antiochus III the Great and Philip V of Macedon had made a pact to divide Egypt's overseas possessions. Philip had seized several islands and cities in Caria and Thrace, while the Battle of Panium (198 BC) had resulted in the transfer of Coele-Syria, including Judaea, from the Ptolemies to the Seleucids. Meanwhile, in the south of Egypt, there was a long-standing revolt that had begun during the reign of Ptolemy IV, led by Horwennefer and by his successor Ankhwennefer. Both the war and the internal revolt were still ongoing when the young Ptolemy V was officially crowned at Memphis at the age of 12 (seven years after the start of his reign), and the Memphis decree issued.

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: Trudy Kockenlocker is a small-town girl with a soft spot for soldiers. She wakes up one morning after a wild farewell party for a group of them to find that while drunk the night before, she married a soldier whose name she can't remember, except that "it had a z in it. Like Ratzkywatzky [...] or was it Zitzkywitzky?" She believes they both used fake names and she doesn't know how to get in touch with him or even what he looks like.
The matter is complicated when she learns that she became pregnant that night as well.  Norval Jones, a local 4-F boy who has been in love with Trudy for years, steps in to help out, but Trudy's over-protective father, a policeman, gets involved and complicates matters. Before long, Norval is arrested on 19 different charges, and then he finds himself on the run as an escaped prisoner.
All seems lost until Trudy gives birth to sextuplets. At that point Governor McGinty and The Boss step in and provide a phone call which results in a happy ending for everyone.
When Norval discovers that Trudy has borne not just one son but six, he faints, and the movie ends with this epilogue on a title card:But Norval recovered andbecame increasingly happyfor, as Shakespeare said:"Some are born great, someachieve greatness, and somehave greatness thrust uponthem."        THE END.

Passage: Trudie is an aspiring painter working as a restaurant waitress. With the pressure to please her parents (Timothy Bottoms and Markie Post) building, she misses a job interview and gets dumped by her boyfriend just before Christmas, and she has a nervous breakdown. Stressed about going home for the holidays without a boyfriend, she kidnaps David Martin, a random customer at the restaurant in which she works and introduces him to her parents as her boyfriend, Nick.  Trudie's family is vacationing at a very isolated log cabin miles away from anyone else, so David is unable to escape, although he makes several attempts. He finally decides to play along until the police come, but he ultimately falls in love with Trudie and understands the family pressure that made her feel forced to kidnap him in the first place.
During Christmas dinner, the holiday comes to an abrupt end when Trudie's parents begin to fight, her brother Jake announces that he is gay, and her sister Katie says that she has quit law school and bought a pilates studio with her parents' tuition money. The police then arrive and arrest the family during Christmas dinner, revealing that David Martin is not actually Trudie's boyfriend.
Before he was kidnapped, David had a successful job and a beautiful, rich girlfriend; however, during his time with Trudie and her family, he realizes his life has developed into something he did not intend. After the family is released, except Grandma Dolores because she tired resist arrest, when David decides not to press charges, Trudie does not see or hear from David for a few months, but sees his engagement announcement in the newspaper.

Passage: Small-town church organist Marion Cullen falls in love with traveling salesman Jimmy Decker. When she learns that the couple who raised her are not really her parents, and that she is actually the illegitimate daughter of a showgirl, she sets out for New York City in search of Jimmy. However, she discovers that he is engaged to Enid Hollister, his boss' daughter. Dr. Travers, who is in love with Marion, offers to help her, but she decides to try to make it on her own.
Jobs are scarce, however. She ends up with other hopeful showgirls, among them Dixie Dare, hoping to audition for a part in Ford Humphries' new production. The philandering Humphries likes what he sees in Marion and hires her as a piano accompanist. Dixie gets a job as well, and she and Marion become friends and roommates.
Travers sees Humphries and Marion together, and knowing the former's reputation, brings Jimmy to Humphries' party. Jimmy tells Marion that he loves her, but she refuses to break up his marriage. When she also refuses Humphries' advances, he fires her. He then decides to use one of the songs she had composed for his production, claiming he wrote it. When she learns of this, she confronts him, although he denies everything. Jimmy goes to Humphries' suite to convince him to do the right thing. During their argument, Humphries stumbles and falls onto the balcony below and lapses into a coma from his injuries. Jimmy flees the scene; however, the police have a description of him and suspect him of attempted murder. To shield Jimmy, Marion confesses to the non-existent crime. Desperate, Travers operates for hours on Humphries, who regains consciousness and explains what really happened in front of witnesses before dying. Marion is released and becomes engaged to Travers, as Jimmy wishes them well.

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: Annie Graham is a miniatures artist who lives in Utah with her husband, Steve; their 16-year-old son, Peter; and their 13-year-old daughter, Charlie. At the funeral of her secretive mother, Ellen Leigh, Annie delivers a eulogy explaining their fraught relationship and her mother's extremely private life. A week after, Steve is informed that Ellen's grave has been desecrated, while Annie thinks she sees an apparition of Ellen in her workshop. At a support group for the bereaved, Annie reveals that the rest of her family suffered from mental illness that resulted in their deaths.
To attend a party, Peter lies that he is going to a school event, and Annie forces him to take Charlie with him. Unsupervised, Charlie eats cake containing nuts, which she is allergic to, and falls into anaphylactic shock. As Peter drives her to a hospital, Charlie leans out of the window for air. Peter swerves to avoid a dead deer and Charlie is decapitated by a telephone pole. In shock, Peter silently drives home and leaves his sister's corpse in the car for their mother to discover the next morning. The family grieves following Charlie's funeral, heightening tensions between Annie and Peter. Peter is plagued by Charlie's presence around the house.
Annie is befriended by a support group member, Joan. Annie tells her she used to sleepwalk and recounts an incident in which she woke up in Peter's bedroom to find herself, Peter, and Charlie covered in paint thinner with a lit match in her hand. Joan teaches Annie to perform a séance to communicate with Charlie.

Passage: The film takes place in two different times: the present and 11 years earlier. The two plot lines are told in parallel through flashbacks. In 2002, software engineer Alan Russell moves into a new house with his wife Marie, 10-year-old son Tim, and 12-year-old daughter Kaylie. Alan purchases an antique mirror to decorate his office. Unbeknownst to them, the mirror supernaturally induces hallucinations. Marie is haunted by visions of her own body decaying, while Alan is seduced by a ghostly woman named Marisol, who has mirrors in place of eyes.
Over time, the parents become psychotic; Alan isolates himself in his office, and Marie becomes withdrawn and paranoid. All of the plants in the house die, and the family dog disappears after being shut in the office with the mirror. After Kaylie sees Alan with Marisol, she tells her mother, and the parents fight. One night, Marie goes insane and attempts to kill her children, but Alan locks her away. When the family runs out of food, the children realize that their father is under the influence of the mirror, so Kaylie goes to seek help from their mother, and finds her chained to the wall, acting like an animal. Kaylie and Tim try going to their neighbors for help, but the neighbors disbelieve their stories. When Kaylie attempts to use the phone, she discovers that all of her phone calls are answered by the same man.

Passage: Elizabeth Masterson, a young emergency medicine physician whose work is her whole life, is in a serious car accident while on her way to a blind date. Three months later, David Abbott, a landscape architect recovering from the sudden death of his wife, moves into the apartment that had been Elizabeth's, after 'discovering' it in what seems to be a fateful happenstance.
Elizabeth's spirit begins to appear to David in the apartment with ghostly properties and abilities that make it clear that something is not right. She can suddenly appear and disappear, walk or move through walls and objects, and once takes over his actions. When they meet, they are both surprised, as Elizabeth is still unaware of her recent history and refuses to think she is dead. David tries to have her spirit exorcised from the apartment, but to no avail. Since only David can see and hear her, others think that he is hallucinating and talking to himself.
David and Elizabeth begin to bond, as much as that is possible, and he takes her out of town to a beautiful landscaped garden he designed. Elizabeth tells him she senses she has been there before, and in fact, the garden was something she was dreaming of in the opening scenes of the film, where she was awakened by a colleague from cat-napping after working a 23-hour shift in the hospital.
Together, assisted by a psychic bookstore clerk, Darryl, Elizabeth and David find out who she is, what happened to her, and why they are connected. She is not dead, but in a coma, her body being kept on life support at the hospital where she used to work. When David discovers that in accordance with her living will, she will soon be allowed to die, he tries to prevent this by telling Elizabeth's sister, Abby, that he can see her and what the situation involves. One of Elizabeth's young nieces is revealed to be able to sense her presence as well.

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


Question: Passage: During Edward II's reign (1307–1327) there was relatively little activity at the Tower of London. However, it was during this period that the Privy Wardrobe was founded. The institution was based at the Tower and responsible for organising the state's arms. In 1321, Margaret de Clare, Baroness Badlesmere became the first woman imprisoned in the Tower of London after she refused Queen Isabella admittance to Leeds Castle and ordered her archers to fire upon Isabella, killing six of the royal escort. Generally reserved for high-ranking inmates, the Tower was the most important royal prison in the country. However it was not necessarily very secure, and throughout its history people bribed the guards to help them escape. In 1323 Roger Mortimer, Baron Mortimer, was aided in his escape from the Tower by the Sub-Lieutenant of the Tower who let Mortimer's men inside. They hacked a hole in his cell wall and Mortimer escaped to a waiting boat. He fled to France where he encountered Edward's Queen. They began an affair and plotted to overthrow the King. One of Mortimer's first acts on entering England in 1326 was to capture the Tower and release the prisoners held there. For four years he ruled while Edward III was too young to do so himself; in 1330, Edward and his supporters captured Mortimer and threw him in the Tower. Under Edward III's rule (1312–1377) England experienced renewed success in warfare after his father's reign had put the realm on the backfoot against the Scots and French. Amongst Edward's successes were the battles of Crécy and Poitiers where King John II of France was taken prisoner, and the capture of the King David II of Scotland at Neville's Cross. During this period, the Tower of London held many noble prisoners of war. Edward II had allowed the Tower of London to fall into a state of disrepair, and by the reign of Edward III the castle was an uncomfortable place. The nobility held captive within its walls were unable to engage in activities such as hunting which were permissible at other royal castles used as prisons, for instance Windsor. Edward III ordered that the castle should be renovated.

Passage: A third ward was created during Edward I's extension to the Tower, as the narrow enclosure completely surrounded the castle. At the same time a bastion known as Legge's Mount was built at the castle's north-west corner. Brass Mount, the bastion in the north-east corner, was a later addition. The three rectangular towers along the east wall 15 metres (49 ft) apart were dismantled in 1843. Although the bastions have often been ascribed to the Tudor period, there is no evidence to support this; archaeological investigations suggest that Legge's Mount dates from the reign of Edward I. Blocked battlements (also known as crenellations) in the south side of Legge's Mount are the only surviving medieval battlements at the Tower of London (the rest are Victorian replacements). A new 50-metre (160 ft) moat was dug beyond the castle's new limits; it was originally 4.5 metres (15 ft) deeper in the middle than it is today. With the addition of a new curtain wall, the old main entrance to the Tower of London was obscured and made redundant; a new entrance was created in the south-west corner of the external wall circuit. The complex consisted of an inner and an outer gatehouse and a barbican, which became known as the Lion Tower as it was associated with the animals as part of the Royal Menagerie since at least the 1330s. The Lion Tower itself no longer survives. Edward extended the south side of the Tower of London onto land that had previously been submerged by the River Thames. In this wall, he built St Thomas's Tower between 1275 and 1279; later known as Traitors' Gate, it replaced the Bloody Tower as the castle's water-gate. The building is unique in England, and the closest parallel is the now demolished water-gate at the Louvre in Paris. The dock was covered with arrowslits in case of an attack on the castle from the River; there was also a portcullis at the entrance to control who entered. There were luxurious lodgings on the first floor. Edward also moved the Royal Mint into the Tower; its exact location early on is unknown, although it was probably in either the outer ward or the Lion Tower. By 1560, the Mint was located in a building in the outer ward near Salt Tower. Between 1348 and 1355, a second water-gate, Cradle Tower, was added east of St Thomas's Tower for the king's private use.

Passage: Princess Anne plans to run away with Freddie Granton, the commoner secretary of her father, King Eric VIII, once her domineering mother, Queen Martha, has left for a vacation in America. Anne is therefore aghast when the Marquis of Birten brings news that he has negotiated her political marriage to Prince William of Grec, a man she has never even met. Dismissing Anne's vehement protests, the Queen is delighted, a feeling not shared by Anne's loving but ineffectual father.
Meanwhile, the Premier and General Northrup warn that a revolution is brewing. He wishes to execute large numbers of political prisoners, but cannot without the King's signature. The Queen wholeheartedly approves of these stern measures. The King promises to attend to it, but after Northrup and the Queen leave, he orders his secretary to misplace the death warrants. Led by Laker, the rebels rise up after Northrup gets Parliament to grant him dictatorial powers. Anne seizes the opportunity to try to flee with Granton, with her father's approval. However, when she believes that the King is in real danger, she refuses to leave him.
Doctor Fellman, a moderate rebel leader, comes to see the King to demand his abdication, but agrees to stop the fighting in favor of negotiation. Then Northrup insists he is in charge now and laughs in derision when the King claims the people are stronger than Northrup's army and navy. Next to arrive is Prince William. Despite his admission that he dislikes Anne, he is prepared to do his duty and go through with the wedding. Then Fellman and Laker show up. The King surprises Northrup by dismissing him from his service and putting Fellman in charge, ordering him to set up general elections as soon as possible.

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: Bramshill House, in Bramshill, northeast Hampshire, England, is one of the largest and most important Jacobean prodigy house mansions in England. It was built in the early 17th century by Baron Edward la Zouche of Harringworth, but was partly destroyed by fire a few years later. The design shows the influence of the Italian Renaissance, which became popular in England during the late 16th century. The house was designated a Grade I listed building in 1952.
The mansion's southern façade is notable for its decorative architecture, which includes at its centre a large oriel window above the principal entrance. Interior features include a great hall displaying 92 coats of arms on a Jacobean screen, an ornate drawing room, and a 126.5-foot (38.6 m) long gallery containing many portraits. Numerous columns and friezes are found throughout the mansion, while several rooms have large tapestries depicting historical figures and events on their panelled walls. The house is set in 262-acre (106 ha) of grounds containing an 18-acre (7.3 ha) lake. The grounds, which received a Grade II* listing in 1984, are part of a Registered Historic Park that includes about 25 acres (10 ha) of early 17th-century formal gardens near the house. The wider medieval park was landscaped from the 17th to the 20th century and contains woodland.
Bramshill appears to have been a local sporting and social venue since the 16th century. The cricket ground at the house played host to a first-class match in 1823 when an early Hampshire team played an England XI, and it hosted three other matches in 1825–26. During the Second World War, the mansion was used as a Red Cross maternity home, before becoming the residence of the exiled King Michael and Queen Anne of Romania for a number of years. It became the location of the Police Staff College in 1960, and was later home to the European Police College. As a result, many campus buildings have been added to the estate. Owing to escalating maintenance costs the property was sold to the heritage property developers City & Country in August 2014. Among the 14 ghosts reputed to haunt the house is that of a bride who accidentally locked herself in a chest on her wedding night and was not found until 50 years later.

Passage: Belton House is a Grade I listed country house in Belton near Grantham, Lincolnshire, England. The mansion is surrounded by formal gardens and a series of avenues leading to follies within a larger wooded park.
Belton has been described as a compilation of all that is finest of Carolean architecture, the only truly vernacular style of architecture that England had produced since the Tudor period. The house has also been described as the most complete example of a typical English country house; the claim has even been made that Belton's principal facade was the inspiration for the modern British motorway signs which give directions to stately homes. Only Brympton d'Evercy has been similarly lauded as the perfect English country house.For three hundred years, Belton House was the seat of the Brownlow and Cust family, who had first acquired land in the area in the late 16th century. Between 1685 and 1688 Sir John Brownlow and his wife had the present mansion built. Despite great wealth they chose to build a modest country house rather than a grand contemporary Baroque palace. The contemporary, if provincial, Carolean style was the selected choice of design. However, the new house was fitted with the latest innovations such as sash windows for the principal rooms, and more importantly, completely separate areas for the staff. As the Brownlows rose from baronets to barons upward to earls and then once again became barons, successive generations made changes to the interior of the house which reflected their changing social position and tastes, yet the fabric and design of the house changed little.
Following World War I (a period when the Machine Gun Corps was based in the park, as referred to in Henry Williamson's Chronicle of Ancient Sunlight), the Brownlows, like many of their peers, were faced with mounting financial problems. In 1984 they gave the house away—complete with most of its contents. The recipients of their gift, the National Trust, today fully open Belton to the public. It is in a good state of repair and visited by many thousands of tourists each year.

Passage: Inside the house, the Palladian form reaches a height and grandeur seldom seen in any other house in England. It has, in fact, been described as "The finest Palladian interior in England." The grandeur of the interior is obtained with an absence of excessive ornament, and reflects Kent's career-long taste for "the eloquence of a plain surface". Work on the interiors ran from 1739 to 1773. The first habitable rooms were in the family wing and were in use from 1740, the Long Library being the first major interior completed in 1741. Among the last to be completed and entirely under Lady Leicester's supervision is the Chapel with its alabaster reredos. The house is entered through the Marble Hall (though the chief building fabric is in fact pink Derbyshire alabaster), modelled by Kent on a Roman basilica. The room is over 50 feet (15 m) from floor to ceiling and is dominated by the broad white marble flight of steps leading to the surrounding gallery, or peristyle: here alabaster Ionic columns support the coffered, gilded ceiling, copied from a design by Inigo Jones, inspired by the Pantheon in Rome. The fluted columns are thought to be replicas of those in the Temple of Fortuna Virilis, also in Rome. Around the hall are statues in niches; these are predominantly plaster copies of classical deities.
The hall's flight of steps lead to the piano nobile and state rooms. The grandest, the Saloon, is situated immediately behind the great portico, with its walls lined with patterned red caffoy (a mixture of wool, linen and silk) and a coffered, gilded ceiling. In this room hangs Rubens's Return from Egypt. On his Grand Tour, the Earl acquired a collection of Roman copies of Greek and Roman sculpture which is contained in the extensive Statue Gallery, which runs the full length of the house north to south. The North Dining Room, a cube room of 27 feet (8.2 m) contains an Axminster carpet that perfectly mirrors the pattern of the ceiling above. A bust of Aelius Verus, set in a niche in the wall of this room, was found during the restoration at Nettuno. A classical apse gives the room an almost temple air. The apse in fact, contains concealed access to the labyrinth of corridors and narrow stairs that lead to the distant kitchens and service areas of the house. Each corner of the east side of the principal block contains a square salon lit by a huge Venetian window, one of them—the Landscape Room—hung with paintings by Claude Lorrain and Gaspar Poussin. All of the major state rooms have symmetrical walls, even where this involves matching real with false doors. The major rooms also have elaborate white and multi-coloured marble fireplaces, most with carvings and sculpture, mainly the work of Thomas Carter, though Joseph Pickford carved the fireplace in the Statue Gallery.  Much of the furniture in the state rooms was also designed by William Kent, in a stately classicising baroque manner.

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 mortuary temple is located at the base of the pyramid's Eastern face. It is larger than is typical for the period. Archaeological evidence suggests that it was unfinished at Neferirkare's death, and was completed by Neferefre and Nyuserre. For example, while the inner temple and statue niches were built from stone, much of the rest of the temple, including the court and entrance hall, was apparently hastily completed using cheap mudbrick and wood. This left large portions of the mortuary temple susceptible to erosion from rain and wind, where stone would have given it significant durability. The site was less aesthetically impressive, although its basic layout and features remained roughly analogous to Sahure's temple. Its enlarged size can be attributed to a design decision to build the complex without a valley temple or a causeway. Instead, the causeway and temple, whose foundations had been constructed, were diverted to Nyuserre's complex.The temple was entered through the columned portico, and columned entrance hall which terminates into a large columned courtyard. The columns of the hall and courtyard are made from wood arranged into the form of lotus stalks and buds. The courtyard is adorned with thirty-seven such columns; these columns are asymmetrically positioned. The archaeologist Herbert Ricke hypothesized that columns near the altar may have been damaged by fire and removed. A papyrus fragment from the temple archives corroborates this story. A low stepped ramp in the courtyard's west leads to a transverse (north-south) corridor which leads south into storerooms and north into another smaller corridor containing six wooden columns through which the open courtyard of the main pyramid can be accessed. It is in the southern storerooms that the Abusir papyri were discovered by graverobbers in the 1890s. Beyond the storerooms is a gate which has another access point to the main pyramid's courtyard, and through which a second excavated south-western gate leads to Khentkaus II's complex. Finally, traversing across the corridor leads directly into the inner sanctuary or temple.

Passage: With greater power and wealth during the New Kingdom (c. 1550–1070 BC), Egypt devoted still more resources to its temples, which grew larger and more elaborate. Higher-ranking priestly roles became permanent rather than rotating positions, and they controlled a large portion of Egypt's wealth. Anthony Spalinger suggests that, as the influence of temples expanded, religious celebrations that had once been fully public were absorbed into the temples' increasingly important festival rituals. The most important god of the time was Amun, whose main cult center, the Precinct of Amun-Re at Karnak in Thebes, eventually became the largest of all temples, and whose high priests may have wielded considerable political influence.Many temples were now built entirely of stone, and their general plan became fixed, with the sanctuary, halls, courtyards, and pylon gateways oriented along the path used for festival processions. New Kingdom pharaohs ceased using pyramids as funerary monuments and placed their tombs a great distance from their mortuary temples. Without pyramids to build around, mortuary temples began using the same plan as those dedicated to the gods.In the middle of the New Kingdom, Pharaoh Akhenaten promoted the god Aten over all others and eventually abolished the official worship of most other gods. Traditional temples were neglected while new Aten temples, differing sharply in design and construction, were erected. But Akhenaten's revolution was reversed soon after his death, with the traditional cults reinstated and the new temples dismantled. Subsequent pharaohs dedicated still more resources to the temples, particularly Ramesses II, the most prolific monument-builder in Egyptian history. As the wealth of the priesthoods continued to grow, so did their religious influence: temple oracles, controlled by the priests, were an increasingly popular method of making decisions. Pharaonic power waned, and in the eleventh century BC a military leader, Herihor, made himself High Priest of Amun and the de facto ruler of Upper Egypt, beginning the political fragmentation of the Third Intermediate Period (c. 1070–664 BC).As the New Kingdom crumbled, the building of mortuary temples ceased and was never revived. Some rulers of the Third Intermediate Period, such as those at Tanis, were buried within the enclosures of divine temples, thus continuing the close link between temple and tomb.

Passage: The Pyramid of Neferirkare (in ancient Egyptian the Ba of Neferirkare) was built for the Fifth Dynasty pharaoh Neferirkare Kakai – referred to as Neferirkare – in the 25th century BC. It was the tallest structure located on the highest site at the necropolis of Abusir – found between Giza and Saqqara – and still towers over the necropolis today. The pyramid is also significant because its evacuation led to the discovery of the Abusir papyri.
The Fifth Dynasty marked the end of the great pyramid constructions during the Old Kingdom. Pyramids of the era were smaller and becoming more standardized, though intricate relief decoration also proliferated. Neferirkare's pyramid deviated from convention as it was originally built as a step pyramid: a design that had been antiquated after the Third Dynasty (26th or 27th century BC). This was then encased in a second step pyramid with alterations intended to convert it into a true pyramid; however, the pharaoh's  death left the work to be completed by his successors. The remaining works were completed in haste, using cheaper building material.
Because of the circumstances, Neferirkare's monument lacked several basic elements of a pyramid complex: a valley temple, a causeway, and a cult pyramid. Instead, these were replaced by a small settlement of mudbrick houses south of the monument from where cult priests could conduct their daily activities, rather than the usual pyramid town near the valley temple. The discovery of the Abusir papyri in the 1890s is owed to this. Normally, the papyrus archives would have been contained in the pyramid town where their destruction would have been assured. The pyramid became part of a greater family cemetery. The monuments to Neferirkare's consort, Khentkaus II; and his sons, Neferefre and Nyuserre Ini, are found in the surrounds. Though their construction began under different rulers, all four of these monuments were completed during the reign of Nyuserre.

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: Transportation and warehousing contribute approximately C$2.2 billion to Manitoba's GDP. Total employment in the industry is estimated at 34,500, or around 5 percent of Manitoba's population. Trucks haul 95 percent of land freight in Manitoba, and trucking companies account for 80 percent of Manitoba's merchandise trade to the United States. Five of Canada's twenty-five largest employers in for-hire trucking are headquartered in Manitoba. C$1.18 billion of Manitoba's GDP comes directly or indirectly from trucking.Greyhound Canada and Grey Goose Bus Lines offer domestic bus service from the Winnipeg Bus Terminal. The terminal was relocated from downtown Winnipeg to the airport in 2009, and is a Greyhound hub. Municipalities also operate localized transit bus systems.
Manitoba has two Class I railways: Canadian National Railway (CN) and Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR). Winnipeg is centrally located on the main lines of both carriers, and both maintain large inter-modal terminals in the city. CN and CPR operate a combined 2,439 kilometres (1,516 mi) of track in Manitoba. Via Rail offers transcontinental and Northern Manitoba passenger service from Winnipeg's Union Station. Numerous small regional and short-line railways also run trains within Manitoba: the Hudson Bay Railway, the Southern Manitoba Railway, Burlington Northern Santa Fe Manitoba, Greater Winnipeg Water District Railway, and Central Manitoba Railway. Together, these smaller lines operate approximately 1,775 kilometres (1,103 mi) of track in the province.

Passage: Manitoba ( (listen)) is a province at the longitudinal centre of Canada. It is often considered one of the three prairie provinces (with Alberta and Saskatchewan) and is Canada's fifth-most populous province with its estimated 1.3 million people. Manitoba covers 649,950 square kilometres (250,900 sq mi) with a widely varied landscape, stretching from the northern oceanic coastline to the southern border with the United States. The province is bordered by the provinces of Ontario to the east and Saskatchewan to the west, the territories of Nunavut to the north, and Northwest Territories to the northwest, and the U.S. states of North Dakota and Minnesota to the south.
Aboriginal peoples have inhabited what is now Manitoba for thousands of years. In the late 17th century, fur traders arrived on two major river systems, what is now called the Nelson in northern Manitoba and in the southeast along the Winnipeg River system. A Royal Charter in 1670 granted all the lands draining into Hudson's Bay to the British company and they administered trade in what was then called Rupert's Land. During the next 200 years, communities continued to grow and evolve, with a significant settlement of Michif in what is now Winnipeg. The assertion of Métis identity and self-rule culminated in negotiations for the creation of the province of Manitoba. There are many factors that led to an armed uprising of the Métis people against the Government of Canada, a conflict known as the Red River Rebellion. The resolution of the assertion of the right to representation led to the Parliament of Canada passing the Manitoba Act in 1870 that created the province.
Manitoba's capital and largest city, Winnipeg, is the eighth-largest census metropolitan area in Canada. Other census agglomerations in the province are Brandon, Steinbach, Portage la Prairie, and Thompson.

Passage: At the 2011 census, Manitoba had a population of 1,208,268, more than half of which is in the Winnipeg Capital Region; Winnipeg is Canada's eighth-largest Census Metropolitan Area, with a population of 730,018 (2011 Census). Although initial colonization of the province revolved mostly around homesteading, the last century has seen a shift towards urbanization; Manitoba is the only Canadian province with over fifty-five percent of its population located in a single city.
According to the 2006 Canadian census, the largest ethnic group in Manitoba is English (22.9%), followed by German (19.1%), Scottish (18.5%), Ukrainian (14.7%), Irish (13.4%), North American Indian (10.6%), Polish (7.3%), Métis (6.4%), French (5.6%), Dutch (4.9%), Russian (4.0%), and Icelandic (2.4%). Almost one-fifth of respondents also identified their ethnicity as "Canadian". There is a significant indigenous community: aboriginals (including Métis) are Manitoba's fastest-growing ethnic group, representing 13.6 percent of Manitoba's population as of 2001 (some reserves refused to allow census-takers to enumerate their populations or were otherwise incompletely counted). There is a significant Franco-Manitoban minority (148,370) and a growing aboriginal population (192,865, including the Métis). Gimli, Manitoba is home to the largest Icelandic community outside of Iceland.Most Manitobans belong to a Christian denomination: on the 2001 census, 758,760 Manitobans (68.7%) reported being Christian, followed by 13,040 (1.2%) Jewish, 5,745 (0.5%) Buddhist, 5,485 (0.5%) Sikh, 5,095 (0.5%) Muslim, 3,840 (0.3%) Hindu, 3,415 (0.3%) Aboriginal spirituality and 995 (0.1%) pagan. 201,825 Manitobans (18.3%) reported no religious affiliation. The largest Christian denominations by number of adherents were the Roman Catholic Church with 292,970 (27%); the United Church of Canada with 176,820 (16%); and the Anglican Church of Canada with 85,890 (8%).

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.