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: The film begins with Thomas "Boats" Gilhooley ("boats" is a nickname for a bosun's mate) (Lee Marvin), an expatriate United States Navy veteran, working aboard a freighter. When he realizes that the ship is passing by Haleakaloha, French Polynesia, but not actually calling there, he jumps ship to swim to the island.
Next, Michael "Guns" Donovan ("guns" is a Navy nickname for a gunner's mate), another expatriate U.S. Navy veteran and a former shipmate of Gilhooley, returns from a fishing trip aboard an outrigger canoe. Donovan is greeted by William "Doc" Dedham, also a U.S. Navy veteran and the only physician in the archipelago, who is about to begin a one or two week pre-Christmas circuit of the "outer islands," taking care of the health needs of the residents. Dedham's three children are placed in Donovan's care.
The kids' plans for a peaceful celebration of Donovan's birthday on December 7 are shattered by the arrival of Gilhooley, who shares his birthday. There is an unbroken 21-year tradition that Donovan and Gilhooley have a knock-down, drag-out fight every birthday—-to the delight of the local observers-—and their 22nd year does not break the tradition. The two vets meet in (and trash) "Donovan's Reef," the saloon owned by Donovan.
Miss Amelia Dedham is a "proper" young lady "of means" from Boston, who has become the chairman of the board of the Dedham Shipping Company. Her father is Doc Dedham, whom she has never met, but who now has inherited a large block of stock in the family company, making him the majority stockholder. She travels to Haleakaloha in hope of finding proof that Doc has violated an outdated (but still in effect) morality clause in the will which would keep him from inheriting the stock and thus enable her to retain control.

SOLUTION: What are the full names of the veterans?

PROBLEM: Passage: The boards of the covers, previously assumed to be limewood, are now thought to be birch, an unusual wood in later bindings, but one easily available in northern England.  Both have four holes where the binding threads were laced through; the two threads were run round the inner edges of the cover and knotted back at the holes.  The front cover has an additional 12 holes where the ends of the cords for the raised framing lines went through, at the four corners of the two main frames, and the ends of the horizontal bars between the interlace panels and the central vine motif.The stitching of the binding uses "Coptic sewing", that is "flexible unsupported sewing (produced by two needles and thread looping round one another in a figure-of-eight sewing pattern)"  Coptic sewing uses small threads both to attach the leaves together and, knotted together, to attach the pages to the cover boards. Normal Western binding uses thread for the former and thicker cord running across the spine of the book for the latter, with the thread knotted onto the cords.  Coptic sewing is also found in the earliest surviving leather bookbindings, which are from Coptic libraries in Egypt from the 7th and 8th centuries; in particular the design of the cover of one in the Morgan Library (MS M.569) has been compared to the St Cuthbert Gospel.  In the techniques used in the binding, apart from the raised decoration, the closest resemblance is to an even smaller Irish pocket gospel book from some 50 years later, the Cadmug Gospels at Fulda, which is believed to have belonged to Saint Boniface.  This is also in red goatskin, with coloured incised lines, and uses a similar unsupported or cordless stitching technique.  The first appearance of the cords or supports that these "unsupported" bindings lack is found in two other books at Fulda, and they soon became universal in, and characteristic of, Western bookbinding until the arrival of modern machine techniques.  The cords run horizontally across the spine, and are thicker than the threads that hold the pages together.  They are attached, typically by lacing through holes or glue, to the two boards of the cover, and the threads holding the gatherings are knotted to them, resulting in a stronger binding.

SOLUTION: Which types of boards have four holes where the binding threads were laced through?

PROBLEM: Passage: Hex Enduction Hour was the first Fall album to make the UK Albums Chart, where it spent three weeks, peaking at no. 71. By mid-1983 it had sold 20,000 copies, reflecting a surge in the band's popularity, and five years into their career brought them to the attention of record labels. Critics were highly enthusiastic; according to Simon Ford, they could "have hardly been more supportive". Reviewing the album in the NME, Richard Cook described the band as tighter and more disciplined than in earlier recordings, "their master piece to date", while still maintaining their impact. He praised the band's use of recording-studio techniques and atmospherics without resorting to glamorisation. Melody Maker's Colin Irwin said it was "incredibly exciting and utterly compelling".  A dissenter was Neil McCormick of Irish fortnightly Hot Press, who dismissed the album as secondhand melodramatic punk and wondered if the album was "meant to be minimalist or primitive then it fatally ignores the true primitivism of the strong melody and accessible lyrics found in folk music."Later, Record Collector described the album as a "taut, twitchy and ominous masterclass in DIY post-punk", and singled out Smith's lyrics for praise. The Quietus, in 2009, wrote of the album as "arguably ... The Fall's mightiest hour", while Stylus Magazine wrote that "Hex demonstrates the culmination of 'early' Fall: a monolithic beast of ragged grooves piloted through the embittering miasma of English society by the verbose acidity/Joycean all-inclusiveness of Mark E. Smith." Pitchfork listed Hex Enduction Hour as the 33rd best album of the 1980s. Comedian Stewart Lee has called it his favourite album and "probably the best album of all time."According to Smith, the album's lyrics had a negative impact on the band's later career. In 1984, Motown Records expressed interest in signing the band to a new UK division, with a provisional offer of a £46,000 up-front advance. A label executive asked to hear something from the Fall's back catalogue, but Hex was the only album Smith had available; he remembered thinking, "when he hears that, we've had it." The rejection letter stated that the label saw "no commercial potential in this band whatsoever". Smith believes this was due to the "obligatory niggers" line from the opening track "The Classical".

SOLUTION:
What band did Richard Cook describe as tighter and more disciplined?