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: In "Me and Veronica," a tempestuous little drama set in a dingy area of the New Jersey shoreline, Elizabeth McGovern and Patricia Wettig play sisters whose lives are approaching dead ends. Fanny, the "good" sister, is a divorced part-time waitress with artistic leanings who lives in a bungalow in one of those desolate seaside towns of packed-together houses that look like they could be washed away at any moment. 
One day her "bad" sister, Veronica, from whom she has been estranged for five years, comes to visit. Veronica informs Fanny that she is about to go to jail for welfare fraud. An unmarried mother of two, she was caught collecting checks from two states at once and has to serve time on Rikers Island.
Fanny and Veronica share a desperately buoyant night on the town, getting drunk in fishermen's bars and playing a dangerous game called Jersey Chicken, in which they grab the girders of a lifting drawbridge and jump into the inky water. Although they share an edgy affection, there has been bad blood between them ever since Fanny caught Veronica in bed with her husband.
After Veronica goes to jail, Fanny, posing as a state investigator, rescues her sister's children from the trailer park in Netcong, New Jersey where Veronica left them with Michael, the latest in a string of lovers. While visiting Veronica in jail, Fanny also begins to realize that her sister is not just down and out but mentally ill and possibly suicidal. From here the story takes an inevitably grim turn in which Fanny is left to pick up the pieces.

SOLUTION: Who is an unmarried mother?

PROBLEM: 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.

SOLUTION: What is the first name of the person who agrees to a marriage proposal after some convincing?

PROBLEM: Passage: After his share in the Farthest South achievement of the Discovery Expedition, Ernest Shackleton suffered a physical collapse on the return journey, and was sent home with the expedition's relief vessel on orders from Scott; he bitterly resented it, and the two became rivals.  Four years later, Shackleton organised his own polar venture, the Nimrod Expedition, 1907–09. This was the first expedition to set the definite objective of reaching the South Pole, and to have a specific strategy for doing so.To assist his endeavour, Shackleton adopted a mixed transport strategy, involving the use of Manchurian ponies as pack animals, as well as the more traditional dog-sledges. A specially adapted motor car was also taken. Although the dogs and the car were used during the expedition for a number of purposes, the task of assisting the group that would undertake the march to the pole fell to the ponies. The size of Shackleton's four-man polar party was dictated by the number of surviving ponies; of the ten that were embarked in New Zealand, only four had survived the 1908 winter.Ernest Shackleton and three companions (Frank Wild, Eric Marshall and Jameson Adams) began their march on 29 October 1908. On 26 November they surpassed the farthest point reached by Scott's 1902 party. "A day to remember", wrote Shackleton in his journal, noting that they had reached this point in far less time than on the previous march with Captain Scott. Shackleton's group continued southward, discovering and ascending the Beardmore Glacier to the polar plateau, and then marching on to reach their Farthest South point at 88°23'S, a mere 97 nautical miles (180 km; 112 mi) from the pole, on 9 January 1909. Here they planted the Union Jack presented to them by Queen Alexandra, and took possession of the plateau in the name of King Edward VII, before shortages of food and supplies forced them to turn back north. This was, at the time, the closest convergence on either pole. The increase of more than six degrees south from Scott's previous record was the greatest extension of Farthest South since Captain Cook's 1773 mark. Shackleton was treated as a hero on his return to England. His record was to stand for less than three years, being passed by Amundsen on 7 December 1911.

SOLUTION:
What were the last names of the two people who became rivals?