TASK DEFINITION: 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.
PROBLEM: Passage: Christmas has always been an exceptional time of love and tradition in the small town of Trapper Falls, Alaska. Hometown of Mayor Dan Reed looks forward to each year with enthusiasm to all the events, friends and family that fill this special season. Together with his brother Greg, they dedicate time away from their adventure tour company to drape the town is Christmas cheer. When Dan's old high school rival Mitch Bright, a mean-spirited and embittered militant atheist returns home after 20 years, Dan is immediately suspicious. Mitch is a highly successful big city lawyer who has never wanted anything to do with Trapper Falls. The rivalry re-ignites when the frustrated Mitch takes offense to what he sees as the town's violation of his rights. Mitch wants the Nativity scene removed from the front of City hall and the word Christmas switched to Happy Holidays on all signs. Fifty years of tradition are now challenged not by an outsider, but a former member of the community. As the conflict escalates, it goes beyond one person's opinion but magnifies into an entire town problem when Mitch enters into the mayoral race to have Dan replaced.
In the heat of the legal battle and facing certain defeat, Dan's wife Kristen and their daughter Makayla, wanting to show what she believes to be the true meaning of Christmas, are inspired to launch a "Christmas with a Capital C" campaign as an effort to keep the town together. In doing so they discover the secret behind Mitch's return: he is looking for love and acceptance, but can't find it in the world of high-flown success.

SOLUTION: What's the full name of the man the militant atheist is trying to replace as Mayor?

PROBLEM: Passage: The party turned for home after 73 days' southward travel. Rations had been cut several times to extend the return journey time beyond the original 110-day estimate. Shackleton now aimed to reach Hut Point in 50 days, since according to Shackleton's prior orders Nimrod, having returned to take the expedition home, would depart on 1 March at the latest. The four men were now much weakened, yet in the following days they achieved impressive distances, reaching the head of the glacier on 19 January. As they began the descent they had five days' food at half rations, to last them until the Lower Glacier depot; during the ascent the same distance had taken 12 days. Shackleton's physical condition was by now a major concern, yet according to Adams "the worse he felt, the harder he pulled".The depot was reached on 28 January. Wild, ill with dysentery, was unable to pull or to eat anything but biscuits, which were in short supply. On 31 January Shackleton forced his own breakfast biscuit on Wild, a gesture that moved Wild to write: "BY GOD I shall never forget. Thousands of pounds would not have bought that one biscuit". A few days later, the rest of the party were struck with severe enteritis, the result of eating tainted pony-meat. But the pace of march had to be maintained; the small amounts of food carried between depots would make any delay fatal. However, a strong wind behind them enabled them to set a sail on the sledge and maintain a good marching rate.
"We are so thin that our bones ache as we lie on the hard snow", wrote Shackleton. From 18 February onward they began to pick up familiar landmarks, and on the 23rd they reached Bluff Depot, which to their great relief had been copiously resupplied by Ernest Joyce. The range of delicacies over and above the crates of regular supplies was listed by Shackleton: "Carlsbad plums, eggs, cakes, plum pudding, gingerbread and crystallised fruit". Wild's laconic comment was "Good old Joyce".Their food worries were now resolved, but they still had to get back to Hut Point before the 1 March deadline. The final leg of their march was interrupted by a blizzard, which held them in camp for 24 hours. On 27 February, when they were still 33 nautical miles (61 km; 38 mi) from safety, Marshall collapsed. Shackleton then decided that he and Wild would make a dash for Hut Point in hopes of finding the ship and holding her until the other two could be rescued. They reached the hut late on 28 February. Hoping that the ship was nearby, they sought to attract its attention by setting fire to a small wooden hut used for magnetic observations. Shortly afterwards Nimrod, which had been anchored at the Glacier Tongue, came into view: "No happier sight ever met the eyes of man", wrote Wild later. It was a further three days before Adams and Marshall could be picked up from the Barrier, but by 4 March the whole southern party was aboard and Shackleton was able to order full steam towards the north.

SOLUTION: What is the first name of "Good old Joyce?"?

PROBLEM: Passage: Los Angeles. The season of El Niño. Frank is a high school student obsessed with heavy electron resurrection (reanimating corpses soon after death). One night Frank's neighbor and fellow student Lance throws a party and as a joke invites Karl, an outsider in school. When Karl shows up, however, he gets into a fight with Lance and Tuttle and dies after falling into an empty swimming pool. Frank sees Lance and Tuttle attempting to dump the body and offers to reanimate the corpse for them. Stealing a brain from his father's (Judge Reinhold) lab, Frank successfully resurrects Karl and returns him home.
The next day Frank is befriended by Lance and Tuttle, and Karl appears to be changed into a cool kid in school. Frank, suspicious of Karl's personality change, discovers that the brain he used was that of a murderer named Skeeter Wayne Dobbs. Revealing this to Karl, Karl and Frank agree to keep this a secret from the others. Karl then helps Frank to get a date with his crush Macy by throwing a party using money stolen from the homecoming dance. At the dance Karl beats up Lance and Tuttle and leaves with Andrea who soon goes missing. Realizing Karl has stolen the homecoming money and potentially murdered Andrea, Frank confronts Karl who dismisses his concerns and invites him to a Halloween party that night. Macy, thinking Frank stole the money, breaks up with him and goes to the party alone.

SOLUTION:
Who used a brain of a murderer to reanimate a corpse?