TASK DEFINITION: You are given a background paragraph that describes one or more causal or qualitative relationships such as a relationship in economics or a scientific law and a story that makes use of the concepts or the relationship described in the provided paragraph. You need to come up with a question about the story that requires an understanding of the relationship described in the background paragraph. The generated question should not be answerable without both the background and story. Write a question about the story that requires a relationship in the background paragraph to answer. Check whether your question requires both the background paragraph and the story to answer. If your question can be answered by only one of these, try to rewrite your question so that it requires both. Note that "flipping" a word in the question can give rise to a new question where the answer will be different from the original question. Often, "flipping" a word gives rise to flipping the direction of the relationship, for example, from "increase" to "decrease."
PROBLEM: Background Paragraph: Saturated hydrocarbons are given the general name of alkanes . The name of specific alkanes always ends in – ane . The first part of the name indicates how many carbon atoms each molecule of the alkane has. The smallest alkane is methane. It has just one carbon atom. The next largest is ethane with two carbon atoms. The chemical formulas and properties of methane, ethane, and other small alkanes are listed in the Table below . The boiling and melting points of alkanes are determined mainly by the number of carbon atoms they have. Alkanes with more carbon atoms generally boil and melt at higher temperatures. 
Story: Scientists are studying two alkanes in a laboratory, Mophane and Tripane. Scientists are analyzing the various characteristics of these alkanes to be used in future scientific studies. They discover that Mophane has more carbon atoms than Tripane. This information will definitely be useful in the future!.

SOLUTION: Which alkane has a higher boiling point?

PROBLEM: Background Paragraph: ANOVA generalizes to the study of the effects of multiple factors. When the experiment includes observations at all combinations of levels of each factor, it is termed factorial. Factorial experiments are more efficient than a series of single factor experiments and the efficiency grows as the number of factors increases.[45] Consequently, factorial designs are heavily used. 
Story: Medication A was tested on 1000 people for 3 years and cured Disease X in 80% of those trials. However,  Medication B was tested on 50 patients and cured Disease X in 90% of those trials.

SOLUTION: Was Medication A's trial more efficient or less efficient than Medication B's trial?

PROBLEM: Background Paragraph: A period of very low rainfall occurred while the Grants were on the islands. The drought resulted in fewer seeds for the finches to eat. Birds with smaller beaks could eat only the smaller seeds. Birds with bigger beaks were better off. They could eat seeds of all sizes. Therefore, there was more food available to them. Many of the small-beaked birds died in the drought. More of the big-beaked birds survived and reproduced. Within just a couple of years, the average beak size in the finches increased. This was clearly evolution by natural selection. 
Story: Two bird islands experienced different levels of rainfall. West island experienced a lengthy drought that lasted several years. Many birds were affected by this drought. East island had several normal years as far as rainfall was concerned.

SOLUTION:
Which island had fewer big-beaked birds survive and reproduce?