TASK DEFINITION: In this task, you will be shown an extract from a movie plot and a question. You need to provide the correct answer for it. Short answers containing words that are present in the passage are preferred.
PROBLEM: It is Christmas 1911 and Arthur Winslow, a retired London banker, is making final preparations for a dinner to seal the engagement between his daughter Catherine, an outspoken supporter of the controversial cause of women's suffrage, and Captain John Watherstone. The family and guests are toasting the upcoming marriage when Arthur discovers that his youngest son Ronnie, a 13-year old cadet at the Royal Naval College at Osbourne, is unexpectedly home. Ronnie has been accused of the theft of a postal order. An internal enquiry, conducted without notice to his family and without benefit of representation, finds him guilty and Mr. Winslow is "requested to withdraw" his son from the college (the formula of the day for expulsion). Ronnie proclaims his innocence and his father believes himenough so that he demands an apology from the College. When the college refuses to reinstate Ronnie, Arthur decides to take the matter to court. With the help of his daughter and Desmond Curry, a solicitor and friend of the family, Mr. Winslow decides to hire the most highly sought after barrister in England at the time, Sir Robert Morton, known also to be a shrewd opposition Member of Parliament.The government is unwilling to allow the case to proceed. The Naval College is a representative of the Admiralty and the Crown, and as such British law presumes they are infallible and above question; their judgment can be legally questioned only with the permission of the Attorney General. However, after heated debates in the House of Commons, the government yields, and the case does come to court.Catherine had expected Sir Robert to decline the case, or at best to treat it as a political tool; instead, he is coolly matter-of-fact about having been persuaded of Ronnie's innocence by his responses to questioning (in fact, a form of cross-examination, to see how young Ronnie would hold up in court) in the presence of his family. Catherine, left-wing suffragette, is not so enthusiastic towards Morton who she considers too heartless for a case like this. Catherine is also disturbed by Sir Robert's establishment views: he is a conservative opponent of womens suffrage. "He always speaks out against what is right," she complains. However, she admires his legal skills. Morton on his part is obviously quite taken with her from the moment he glimpses her peering down at him from the ladies' gallery at the House of Commons.In the meantime, the case creates media hysteria and puts a heavy toll on the Winslow family their funds are rapidly depleted in order to cover legal expenses. Mr. Winslow's physical health deteriorates under the strain and the happiness of the Winslows' home is destroyed. Arthur's wife, Grace, begins to wonder if the real issue is justice or a father's stubborn and foolish pride. Forced to make economical sacrifices, Grace Winslow is unwilling to take the drastic measure of dismissing, Violet, who has been the familys maid for over twenty years. The eldest son, Dickie Winslow, has to leave Oxford due to the lack of money destroying his chance at a career in the Civil Service. Instead, he is compelled to find employment in his fathers bank. Catherine's marriage settlement is also gone. Her fiancé John Watherstone breaks off the engagement in the face of opposition from his father (an Army Colonel), forcing her to consider a sincere and well-intentioned offer of marriage from Desmond, whom she does not love. Sir Robert has also declined appointment as Lord Chief Justice, rather than drop the case. The least affected is Ronnie, who happily has been transferred to a new school.At trial, Sir Robert (working together with Desmond Curry and his firm) is able to discredit much of the supposed evidence. The Admiralty, certainly embarrassed and presumably no longer confident of Ronnie's guilt, abruptly withdraws all charges against him, proclaiming the boy entirely innocent.When their resounding victory arrives, not a single member of the Winslows family is present at court. It is Violet, the maid, who tells Mr. Winslow and Catherine what had happened at court. Shortly after, Sir Robert appears in the Winslowss home to share the good news. The film ends with a suggestion that romance may yet blossom between Sir Robert and Catherine, who acknowledges that she has misjudged him all along., Question: Who do they engage to assist them ?

SOLUTION: Answer: They engage a friend and family solicitor, Desmond Curry to assist them.

PROBLEM: This article's plot summary may be too long or excessively detailed. Please help improve it by removing unnecessary details and making it more concise. (November 2014) (Learn how and when to remove this template message)In a small town in the Deep South, Charles Eliot "Bubba" Ritter, a large but gentle mentally challenged man, befriends young Marylee Williams. Some of the townspeople are upset by the closeness between Marylee and Bubba, and the brooding, mean-spirited postman Otis Hazelrigg is the worst. When Marylee is mauled by a vicious dog (Bubba saves her) and lies unconscious at a doctor's office, Otis promptly assumes that Bubba has murdered (and likely raped) her. Otis and three friendsÂ â gas station attendant Skeeter Norris and farmer-cousins Philby and Harliss HockerÂ â form a lynch mob. Bubba's mother disguises him as a scarecrow and posts him in a nearby field to wait for the drama to cool down. Otis' bloodhounds sniff Bubba out, and all four vigilantes empty multiple rounds from their guns, killing him. Afterwards, they discover that Marylee is in fact alive, thanks to Bubba, whom they have just murdered. Acting fast, Otis places a pitchfork in Bubba's lifeless hands to make it appear as if he were attacking them with a weapon. The vigilantes are subsequently released because of lack of evidence against them (and blatant perjury by Otis) when the murder is brought to court.Marylee, who has recovered from the attack, sneaks out of her room at night and goes over to the Ritter house looking for Bubba. Mrs. Ritter cannot bring herself to tell Marylee the truth and instead tells her that Bubba has gone away where no one can hurt him. Marylee runs out of the house to look for Bubba and Mrs. Ritter goes after her. She finds Marylee sitting in the field where Bubba had been killed singing a favorite song of hers and Bubba's, and she calmly tells Mrs. Ritter that Bubba isn't gone, only hiding.A day later, Harliss finds a scarecrow in his fields like the one Bubba was hidden in; there is no indication of who put it there. Otis suspects the district attorney of putting it there to rattle the four of them and tells the others to keep calm and do nothing. In the evening, the figure disappears, and Harliss hears activity in his barn. He is investigating up in the loft when a wood chipper below starts of its own accord. Startled, he topples over into the machine and is killed. Because the wood chipper had not run out of gasoline after Harliss had been killed but had been switched off, Otis, Philby and Skeeter suspect that Harliss' death was not accidental. Otis obliquely accuses Mrs. Ritter of having engineered this supposed accident; she denies involvement, but says that other agencies will punish her son's murderers (and also implies that Otis is a pedophile because of his intense interest in Marylee).At the local church's Halloween party while playing hide-and-seek with the other children, Marylee is confronted by Otis, who tries to get her to tell him that Mrs. Ritter is behind the recent events. Instead, she tells him that she knows what he and his friends did to Bubba and runs from him. Otis chases after her but is stopped by a security guard, who tells him to go back to the party.The scarecrow soon reappears in Philby's field, and that night Otis breaks into Mrs. Ritter's house. Trying to stop what he sees as the next stage of her plot, he handles her so roughly that she suffers a fatal heart attack. To cover his tracks, Otis starts a gas leak which results in an explosion that destroys the house. While everyone else believes the explosion was an accident, the district attorney is suspicious.The next night, Philby is disturbed by a commotion in his hog pen; while checking it out, mysterious occurrences make him panic and try to flee in his car, which refuses to start. When he gets out to check the motor, heavy footsteps are heard; he turns and sees something (unseen by the audience) which terrifies him. He is pursued across his property and takes refuge in a grain silo, shutting the door behind him. A conveyor belt feeding into the building is switched on. Philby, unable to open the now-locked door of the silo, is buried in the resulting avalanche of grain and suffocates.The next day, upon learning from Otis of Philby's death, Skeeter is ready to turn himself in rather than face the scarecrow's wrath. Otis remains convinced that recent occurrences are a hoax arranged to avenge Bubba's murder and that Bubba himself is still alive. That night he and Skeeter dig up Bubba's grave, ostensibly to prove that the corpse is not there. Skeeter opens the coffin to reveal that the corpse is in fact there and in panic tries to flee. Otis chases after and stops him, promising to go along with whatever Skeeter decides to do. They return to the grave to refill it, but while Skeeter is down in the grave closing the coffin lid, Otis decides to protect himself, kills Skeeter by smashing his skull with a shovel, and fills in the grave with Skeeter inside it.Driving home in an intoxicated state, Otis sees Marylee alone in the middle of the road. Pursuing her, he crashes his van and chases her on foot into a pumpkin patch. He has just caught her and accused her of masterminding the scarecrow murders when a plowing machine nearby starts up of its own accord. Otis bolts, with the machine chasing him, and collides with the same scarecrow that appeared to his accomplices. It is holding the pitchfork that the murderers had planted on Bubba's corpse, and Otis has been impaled on the tines. He collapses and dies, only realizing the truth at the moment of his death. Marylee, who has been hiding in the pumpkin patch, hears footsteps approaching; she looks up and smiles to see the scarecrow looking down at her. It bends down, presenting her with a flower, and she says "Thank you, Bubba". Marylee then innocently tells him that she has a new game to teach him, called "the chasing game.", Question: What destroys Mrs. Ritter's house?

SOLUTION: Answer: an explosion

PROBLEM: In the present day (1970), 121-year-old Jack Crabb, the oldest living man in the world and residing in a hospice, recounts his plentiful life story to a curious historian. Among other things, Crabb claims to have had been a captive of the Cheyenne, a gunslinger, an associate of Wild Bill Hickok, a scout for General George Armstrong Custer, and the sole white survivor of the Battle of Little Bighorn.Jack begins his story in a flashback to 1859 when he was 10 years old where he and his older sister Caroline (Carole Androsky) survive the massacre of their parents by the Pawnee, and are discovered by a Cheyenne brave who takes the pair to his village. Caroline escapes, but Jack is reared by the goodhearted tribal leader Old Lodge Skins. As Jack gets older, he unwittingly makes an enemy of another boy, Younger Bear; however, Younger Bear eventually owes his life to Jack since he saved his life from a Pawnee brave. Jack is given the name "Little Big Man" because he is short but very brave. In 1865, when Jack is 16, he is captured by U.S. cavalry troopers during a skirmish and renounces his Cheyenne upbringing in order to save himself. He is put in the care of Reverend Silas Pendrake and his sexually frustrated wife, Louise, who tries to seduce Jack. When he witnesses Mrs. Pendrake having sex with the soda shop owner, Jack leaves the Pendrake household, and religion.The following year, Jack becomes the apprentice of the snake-oil salesman Merriweather. The two are tarred and feathered when their customers realize that Merriweather's products are fraudulent. One of the angry customers is Jack's now-grown sister, Caroline, with whom he reunites. She attempts to mold her brother into a gunslinger named the Soda Pop Kid. Jack meets Wild Bill Hickok at a saloon, and Hickok takes a liking to the young man. When Hickok is forced to kill a man in self-defense, Jack loses his taste for gunslinging and Caroline deserts him.Another year or so later, Jack becomes a partner in a general store and marries a Swedish woman named Olga (Kelly Jean Peters). Unfortunately, Jack's business partner turns out to be a thieving scoundrel. The famous cavalry officer George Armstrong Custer suggests the couple restart their lives further west and assures them they have nothing to fear of Indians. They set out, but their stagecoach is ambushed by Cheyenne warriors. Olga is abducted and Jack sets out in search for her. He is reunited with Old Lodge Skins. Younger Bear has become a Contrary, a warrior who does everything in reverse. Jack makes friends with the hwame Little Horse, but continues on his search for Olga.Jack eventually becomes a "muleskinner" in Custer's 7th Cavalry, only because Custer incorrectly determines that was Jack's past job. He takes part in a battle against the Cheyenne, but when the troopers begin killing women and children, Jack turns on them. Jack discovers a Cheyenne woman, Sunshine (AimÃ©e Eccles), giving birth. He returns with her to Old Lodge Skins's tribe. Sunshine becomes his wife and bears him a child. Jack again encounters Younger Bear, not a Contrary anymore, who is now the henpecked husband of the long-lost Olga. Olga does not recognize Jack, who makes no attempt to make her remember him. Sunshine asks Jack to take in her three widowed sisters as wives and to father children with them. He is reluctant at first, but finally agrees.In November 1868, Custer and the 7th Cavalry make a surprise attack on the Cheyenne camp at the Washita River. A now-blind and elderly Old Lodge Skins is saved by Jack, but Sunshine, their child, and her sisters are killed. Jack tries to infiltrate Custer's camp to exact revenge, but loses his nerve to kill Custer.Disheartened, Jack withdraws from life and becomes the town drunk living in Deadwood, South Dakota for the next several years. While in a drunken stupor, he is recognized by Wild Bill Hickok, who gives him money to get cleaned up. Hickok is shot and killed while playing cards and, with his last breath, asks Jack to bring some money to a widow he was having an affair with. Jack visits the widow, now a prostitute who turns out to be Louise Pendrake. Jack gives her the money that Hickok intended for her to use to start a new life, but again rebuffs her sexual advances. This scene provides an homage to Hoffman's role in the movie The Graduate and his seduction by Mrs. Robinson.Jack soon becomes a trapper and hermit. His mind becomes unhinged after coming across an empty trap with a severed animal limb. He prepares to commit suicide, but sees Custer and his troops marching nearby, and decides to return to his quest for revenge. Custer hires him as a scout, reasoning that anything Jack says will be a lie, thus serving as a perfect reverse barometer. Jack tricks Custer into leading his troops into a trap at the Little Bighorn by truthfully telling Custer of the overwhelming force of Native Americans hidden within the valley. As Custer's troops are slaughtered by the combined Sioux and Cheyenne group, he begins to rave insanely. The mad Custer attempts to shoot Jack who is wounded, but is killed by Younger Bear, who then carries Jack away from the battlefield. Having thus discharged his life debt, Younger Bear tells Jack that the next time they meet, he can kill Jack without becoming an evil person.Back at the Indian camp, Jack accompanies Old Lodge Skins to a nearby hill, the Indian burial ground, where the old man, dressed in full chief's regalia, has declared "It is a good day to die", and decides to end his life with dignity. He offers his spirit to the Great Spirit, and lies down at his spot at the Indian Burial Ground to wait for death. Instead, it begins to rain. Old Lodge Skins is revealed to still be alive, and says, "Sometimes the magic works, and sometimes it doesn't". They return to his tepee to have dinner.Back in the present, Jack's narrative ends and he dismisses the historian. The final shot shows the elderly Jack thinking with sadness about the memories of a world which is no more., Question: Who does Jack dismiss?

SOLUTION:
Answer: The historian