TASK DEFINITION: In this task, you will be shown an extract from a movie plot. You need to read the extract and create questions that can be answered from the extract. The questions should be well-formed and grammatically correct. The questions should be completely answerable from the given passage and should not require any external knowledge. Subjective questions are not allowed. Create questions that result in factoid answers. A simple rule of thumb to decide whether a question is factoid or not is to see if two different people with average reading/comprehension skills would come up with the same answer after reading the passage.
PROBLEM: Set on Christmas Eve, the film opens with hundreds of elves helming the command centre of Santa's mile-wide, ultrahigh-tech sleigh, the S-1. Santa and the elves deliver presents to every children in the world using advanced equipment and military precision. These complex operations are micromanaged by Santa's oldest son Steve and his obsequious elfin assistant Peter (amongst thousands of more elves) at mission control underneath the North Pole, while Steve's clumsy and panophobic younger brother Arthur answers the letters to Santa. During a delivery operation, when a child wakes up and almost sees Santa, an elf back in the S-1 inadvertently presses a button, causing a present to fall off a conveyor and go unnoticed.Having completed his 70th mission, Santa is portrayed as far past his prime and whose role in field operations now is largely symbolic. Nonetheless, he is held in high esteem, and delivers a congratulatory speech to the enraptured elves. Much to Steve's frustration, who has long anticipated succeeding his father, Santa announces he looks forward to his 71st. During their family Christmas dinner, Arthur's suggestion for the family to play a board game degenerates into a petty quarrel between Santa and Steve, while Grand-Santa, bored by retirement, resentfully criticises their over-modernisation. Distraught, the various family members leave the dinner table. When Arthur humbly compliments Steve that he believes he will be a great Santa Claus, Steve rudely dismisses Arthur's overture; later, their father shares with Mrs. Claus his grave doubts about his self-identity should he retire.Meanwhile, an elf named Bryony finds the missed presenta wrapped bicycle that has yet to be deliveredand alerts Steve and his elf-assistant to the problem. Arthur is alarmed when he recognises the present as a gift for Gwen, a little girl to whom he had personally replied. Arthur alerts his father, who is at a loss as to how to handle the situation; Steve argues that one missed present out of billions is an acceptable error whose correction can wait a few days. Grand-Santa, on the other hand, proposes delivering the gift using Evie, his old wooden sleigh, and the descendants of the original eight reindeer, forcefully whisking away a reluctant Arthur and a stowaway Bryony. They get lost, lose reindeer, and land in danger several times, ultimately being mistaken for aliens and causing an international military incident. Through all this, Arthur eventually learns to his compounding disappointment that Grand-Santa's true motive is to fulfil his ego, that Steve refuses to help them out of petty resentment, and that his own father has gone to bed, apparently content.Finally, stranded in Cuba after losing the sleigh, Arthur renews his sense of purposethat it all comes down to preventing a child's disappointmentand with Grand-Santa's help manages to recover the sleigh. Meanwhile, the elves grow increasingly alarmed at rumours of this neglected delivery and the Clauses' unthinkable indifference, sending them into a panic. In response, Santa, Mrs. Claus, and Steve take the high-tech sleigh to deliver a superior presentto the wrong child. Santa's navigation error and Steve's mishandling of the mistaken identity throw into sharp relief their intentions against those of Arthur.After much difficulty, and ultimately with Mrs. Claus' and Bryony's help, all the male Clauses arrive at Gwen's house before she awakens, only to have all but Arthur quarrel about who gets to actually place the gift. Noticing that only Arthur truly cares about the girl's feelings, the elder Clauses collectively realise that he is the sole worthy successor. As a result, Santa gives Arthur the honour and Steve forfeits his birthright to his brother. In a fitting conclusion, Gwen glimpses a snow-bearded Arthur in a wind-buffeted sweater just before vanishing into the night.With the crisis resolved, Santa goes into a happy retirement with Mrs. Claus; he also becomes grand-Santa's much-desired new companion. Meanwhile, Steve finds true contentment as Chief Operating Officer while Bryony is promoted to Vice-President of Packing. In a nod to traditionalism once neglected, the high-tech S-1 is re-christened EVIE and refitted to be pulled by a 5000-reindeer teamled by the original eight reindeer, all of whom managed to return safely via innate homing abilities. Finally, Arthur happily guides the entire enterprise in the proper spirit as the new Santa.

SOLUTION: Who helms Santa's command center?

PROBLEM: 30-year-old Poppy is a London schoolteacher who's more upbeat than anyone I've ever met in real life: She dresses in colourful retro-hippie clothing, smiles and waves at strangers on the street, and laughs incessantly. When she goes out clubbing, she stuffs her bra because she likes the way it feels.Poppy can't stand to see anyone unhappy -- or even neutral. She's undeterred by a taciturn bookstore clerk who responds to her many friendly overtures with grunts and glares. It's unclear whether she's actually concerned about his well-being -- her banter is clearly not cheering him up -- or if after a while she's just sort of mocking him.Poppy has a ton of friends, one of whom is her roommate; a couple of sisters, and a very full life that includes bouncing on a trampoline and taking flamenco lessons. She keeps insisting that she's perfectly happy despite the fact that she's single and doesn't have kids or a mortgage, even though she's already reached the ripe old age of 30.In addition to being preternaturally carefree, Poppy is also a bit of a flake. When her bike is stolen early on in the film, she gets over it in a matter of seconds. Her only regret, she laments aloud, is that she never even had a chance to say goodbye. Since she can't bring herself to replace her trusty steed, she decides that -- global warming be damned -- it's time to take driving lessons.Poppy's driving instructor is an angry, humorless racist with bad teeth named Scott who's in no mood for any of Poppy's frivolity; to him, driving is serious business and if you fool around you will crash and you will die! Whoa. The core of Scott's driving philosophy is that one must pay constant attention to the golden triangle of mirrors: the one on the right, the one on the left, and most importantly, the rear-view mirror, which he equates to the all-seeing eye on top of a pyramid, and which he calls Enraha (a malapropism for Eye of Ra, perhaps?).Every Saturday, Poppy and Scott go out for a driving lesson. Poppy keeps goofing around and trying to make small talk, but Scott's hostile demeanor remains impenetrable. Enraha! he screams every time she takes the wheel. Enraha! Enraha! Enraha! Yikes.On the one hand, Scott is clearly a nutjob, but on the other, why does Poppy have to keep torturing him with her antics? Why can't she just shut up and concentrate on driving? I don't think I'd last five minutes with her, but Scott keeps coming back week after week because he prides himself on never having lost a student. And Poppy keeps coming back too, I suppose because she sees Scott as a challenge.Though she refuses to play it straight during her lessons, Poppy clearly has it in her, as is demonstrated by her attempts to help a troubled pupil. Despite this being one of the few serious parts of the movie, it was also probably my favorite, in part because it seemed so real.

SOLUTION: What city does Poppy teach in?

PROBLEM: The Old West town of Calendar, Colorado, springs up almost overnight when clumsy, hotheaded Prudy Perkins (Joan Hackett) discovers gold in a freshly dug grave during a funeral. Her father Olly (Harry Morgan) becomes mayor of the new settlement. He and the other members of the town council bemoan the facts that the place has become a drunken round-the-clock free-for-all, and that to ship out all the gold they are mining, they must pay a hefty fee to the Danbys, a family of bandits who control the only shipping route out of town. Most people are too busy digging to take time out to be sheriff, and those who are willing to put down their shovels quickly die.This changes with the arrival of Jason McCullough (James Garner), a calm and exceptionally competent man from "back east" who says he is only passing through town on his way to Australia. While in the town saloon, he sees young Joe Danby (Bruce Dern) gun down a man. Needing money after discovering the town's ruinous rate of inflation, McCullough demonstrates his uncanny firearms ability to the mayor and town council, and becomes the new sheriff. He breaks up a street brawl and while at the Perkins house meets Prudy under circumstances that are mortifying for her. McCullough arrests Joe and tosses him in the town's unfinished jail, which lacks bars for the cell doors and windows. McCullough keeps the dimwitted Joe imprisoned through the use of a chalk line, some dribbles of red paint, and applied psychology.McCullough acquires a reluctant deputy in scruffy Jake (Jack Elam), previously known as the "town character". The arrest of Joe Danby ignites the wrath of the patriarch of the Danby family. While the rest of the town quiets down under McCullough's reign, Pa Danby (Walter Brennan) mounts various efforts to get Joe out of jail. None of them work, so he brings in a string of hired guns, who are equally unsuccessful. Meanwhile, Prudy spars romantically with McCullough, McCullough and Jake go on an unsuccessful search for gold. Bars are finally installed in the jail.Pa Danby summons a host of his relatives to launch an all-out assault. The sheriff's first impulse is simply to leave town and resume his trip to Australia, but when Prudy expresses her sincere approval of this sensible idea, he announces that it sounds cowardly and decides to stay. The rest of the townsfolk announce their disapproval of his new plan, and officially vote not to help in any way. Thus, the Danby clan rides in faced only by McCullough, Jake, and Prudy. After a lengthy gunfight, McCullough bluffs his way to victory using Joe as a hostage and the old cannon mounted in the center of town. As all the Danbys are marched off to jail, the supposedly unloaded cannon fires, smashing the town brothel and scattering the resident prostitutes and visiting civic leaders.Sheriff McCullough and Prudy get engaged. In a closing monologue, Jake breaks the film's fourth wall and directly informs the audience that they get married and McCullough goes on to become governor of the state of Colorado, never making it to Australia (although he reads about it a lot), while Jake becomes sheriff and "one of the most beloved characters in western folklore".

SOLUTION:
Where does Perkins find the gold?