TASK DEFINITION: You are given a background paragraph that describes one or more causal or qualitative relationships such as a relationship in economics or a scientific law and a story that makes use of the concepts or the relationship described in the provided paragraph. You need to come up with a question about the story that requires an understanding of the relationship described in the background paragraph. The generated question should not be answerable without both the background and story. Write a question about the story that requires a relationship in the background paragraph to answer. Check whether your question requires both the background paragraph and the story to answer. If your question can be answered by only one of these, try to rewrite your question so that it requires both. Note that "flipping" a word in the question can give rise to a new question where the answer will be different from the original question. Often, "flipping" a word gives rise to flipping the direction of the relationship, for example, from "increase" to "decrease."
PROBLEM: Background Paragraph: Storing large volumes of data – When storing XML to either file or database, the volume of data a system produces can often exceed reasonable limits, with a number of detriments: the access times go up as more data is read, CPU load goes up as XML data takes more power to process, and storage costs go up. By storing XML data in Fast Infoset format, data volume may be reduced by as much as 80 percent. 
Story: Paul had a busy day storing XML. At 3 PM, he stored 22111 Gigabytes to the database. At 4 PM, he stored 33222 Gigabytes to the database. At 5 PM, he stored 44333 Gigabytes to the database. At 6 PM, he got dinner. At 7 PM, he stored 55444 Gigabytes to the database. At 8 PM, he stored 66555 Gigabytes to the database. At 9 PM, he went to sleep to finish storing XML tomorrow afternoon.

SOLUTION: What time did storage costs go up:  3 PM or 6 PM?

PROBLEM: Background Paragraph: Fish reproduce sexually. They lay eggs that can be fertilized either inside or outside of the body. In most fish, the eggs develop outside of the mother's body. In the majority of these species, fertilization also takes place outside the mother's body. The male and female fish release their gametes into the surrounding water, where fertilization occurs. Female fish release very high numbers of eggs to increase the chances of fertilization. 
Story: Two neighboring ponds were stocked with adult fish last year. Hill pond had a very nice winter and the fish started reproducing normally, while Mound pond had no fish reproducing this spring.

SOLUTION: Which pond had fewer female fish release very high numbers of eggs?

PROBLEM: Background Paragraph: Conifers have many uses. They are important sources of lumber and are also used to make paper. Resins, the sticky substance you might see oozing out of a wound on a pine tree, are collected from conifers to make a variety of products, such as the solvent turpentine and the rosin used by musicians and baseball players. The sticky rosin improves the pitcher’s hold on the ball or increases the friction between the bow and the strings to help create music from a violin or other stringed instrument. 
Story: Two neighboring towns, Pine town and Willow town, used different types of woods for lumber et al. Willow town used hardwoods, while Pine town used softwoods.

SOLUTION:
Which town used fewer conifers for lumber?