You are given a background paragraph that describes one or more causal or physical relationships, such as a relationship in economics, scientific law, or nature. You need to come up with a fictional story that makes use of the concepts or the relationship described in the provided paragraph. Make sure that your story does not repeat the relation in the given paragraph (e.g., by avoiding verbatim copies of the given paragraph). Start by reading the background paragraph, and determine what relationship(s) are in the paragraph. Write a story that involves the relationship(s) that you determined are in the background paragraph. Try to use your own words as much as possible and not repeat the background paragraph. Feel free to make up places and events as long as they tie back to the background paragraph in a way that you can ask a question about.
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Question: Background Paragraph: A catalyst works by providing a lower energy pathway from reactants to products. The use of a catalyst involves intermediate reactions which have lower activation complexes than the original reaction. On a simplified reaction energy diagram, this can be thought of as lowering the activation energy for a given transformation. If the activation energy of a reaction is decreased, more collisions will have enough energy to overcome this lower barrier, so the reactant-to-product transformation will occur more frequently. As a result, the overall reaction rate will be higher than for an identical reaction with a larger activation energy barrier.

Answer: A chemist is working in the lab with two beakers, beaker R and beaker T, filled with identical solutions. In her experiment, she is going to pour one liquid into beaker R and the same amount of a different liquid into beaker T. After pouring the liquid into beaker R, there is no noticeable change. Pouring the liquid into beaker T, she observes a change in the liquid.


Question: Background Paragraph: Higher pressures increase the solubility of gases. You are probably familiar with this concept as it relates to carbonated beverages. Before opening the container, the inside is pressurized, so a large amount of CO 2 is dissolved in the liquid. After opening, the pressure decreases (to the ambient pressure), so the solubility of CO 2 drops, causing it to bubble out of solution. Because they are not compressible like gases, solid and liquid solutes do not have noticeable changes in solubility at different external pressures.

Answer: Robin is an exterminator who is making new mixtures of chemicals to use for when he gets called to kill rats in his neighborhood. To make the mixtures, he has to dissolve nitrogen gas in containers of water. In one container, container A, he dissolves the nitrogen gas under high pressure. In the other container, container B, he dissolves the nitrogen gas under low pressure.


Question: Background Paragraph: A thermometer is a device used to measure temperature. It is placed in contact with an object and allowed to reach thermal equilibrium with the object (they will have the same temperature). The operation of a thermometer is based on some property, such as volume, that varies with temperature. The most common thermometers contain liquid mercury, or some other liquid, inside a sealed glass tube. The liquid expands and contracts faster than the glass tube. Therefore, when the temperature of the thermometer increases, the liquid volume expands faster than the glass volume, allowing the liquid to rise in the tube. The positions of the liquid in the tube can then be calibrated for accurate temperature readings. Other properties that change with temperature can also be used to make thermometers; liquid crystal colors and electrical conductivity change with temperature, and are also relatively common thermometers.

Answer:
A group of middle school students is measuring the temperature of various liquids for a chemistry lab using a mercury thermometer. They have a beaker of boiling water, a beaker of ice water, and a beaker of water at room temperature.