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: All rock now exposed in the area of the park is volcanic, but this has not always been the case. For hundreds of millions of years, the Lassen region underwent repeated uplifting to form mountains, only to have them worn down and submerged under encroaching seas. During the periods of submersion, sand, mud and limestone were deposited. Occasionally volcanic activity was associated with the mountain building.
About 70 million years ago, the area where the Cascade Range is now situated was under the most recent encroachment by the Pacific Ocean. The rocks that make up the modern Sierra Nevada and the Klamath Mountains were already in existence but deeply buried. Some 70 million years before (140 million years before present), the rocks that now make up the Klamaths broke away from the rocks that now make up the Sierras and moved 60 mi (97 km) west, leaving the flooded 'Lassen Strait.' This broad depression was a seaway that connected the marine basin in California with that in east central Oregon.The entire western portion of North America was being deformed from the Laramide orogeny starting around 70 million years ago. Gradually during millions of years, crustal rocks were folded and fractured and the seas driven away. This same bending and breaking of rocks relieved pressure on the hot material beneath the Earth's crust and permitted magma to rise toward the surface. Volcanoes burst into activity starting 30 million years ago from Washington southward along the Cascades and in the area now occupied by the Sierra Nevada. This activity continued until approximately 11 or 12 million years ago. Lava and ash reached a thickness of up to 10,000 ft (3,000 m) in some areas, forming what is now known as the western Cascades. These have been eroded until they are now rolling hills.
Meanwhile, toward the end of this activity, eruptions of a different kind took place on an unprecedented scale in eastern Oregon and Washington. From innumerable cracks, floods of highly fluid basaltic lava spread to cover an area of over 200,000 sq mi (520,000 km2). Now known as the Columbia Plateau, this great lava bed of flood basalt covers much of Oregon, Washington and even parts of Idaho. Northern California's Modoc Plateau is a thinner basaltic flow which some geologists associate with the Columbia Plateau, but there are technical objections to this. The High Cascades took shape as a distinct mountain belt as a result of this upheaval and the bending of the thick blanket of volcanic rocks. During the next 10 million years, a series of new basaltic volcanic cones similar to the shield volcanoes now found in Hawaii were built.

SOLUTION: What is the modern name for the area that formed after floods of highly fluid basaltic lava spread to cover an area of over 200,000 sq mi?

PROBLEM: Passage: The Early Netherlandish masters' influence reached artists such as Stefan Lochner and the painter known as the Master of the Life of the Virgin, both of whom, working in mid-15th-century Cologne, drew inspiration from imported works by van der Weyden and Bouts. New and distinctive painterly cultures sprang up; Ulm, Nuremberg, Vienna and Munich were the most important artistic centres in the Holy Roman Empire at the start of the 16th century. There was a rise in demand for printmaking (using woodcuts or copperplate engraving) and other innovations borrowed from France and southern Italy. Some 16th-century painters borrowed heavily from the previous century's techniques and styles. Even progressive artists such as Jan Gossaert made copies, such as his reworking of van Eyck's Madonna in the Church. Gerard David linked the styles of Bruges and Antwerp, often travelling between the cities. He moved to Antwerp in 1505, when Quentin Matsys was the head of the local painters' guild, and the two became friends.By the 16th century the iconographic innovations and painterly techniques developed by van Eyck had become standard throughout northern Europe. Albrecht Dürer emulated van Eyck's precision. Painters enjoyed a new level of respect and status; patrons no longer simply commissioned works but courted the artists, sponsoring their travel and exposing them to new and wide-ranging influences. Hieronymus Bosch, active in the late 15th and early 16th centuries, remains one of the most important and popular of the Netherlandish painters. He was anomalous in that he largely forewent realistic depictions of nature, human existence and perspective, while his work is almost entirely free of Italian influences. His better-known works are instead characterised by fantastical elements that tend towards the hallucinatory, drawing to some extent from the vision of hell in van Eyck's Crucifixion and Last Judgement diptych. Bosch followed his own muse, tending instead towards moralism and pessimism. His paintings, especially the triptychs, are among the most significant and accomplished of the late Netherlandish period
The Reformation brought changes in outlook and artistic expression as secular and landscape imagery overtook biblical scenes. Sacred imagery was shown in a didactic and moralistic manner, with religious figures becoming marginalized and relegated to the background. Pieter Bruegel the Elder, one of the few who followed Bosch's style, is an important bridge between the Early Netherlandish artists and their successors. His work retains many 15th-century conventions, but his perspective and subjects are distinctly modern. Sweeping landscapes came to the fore in paintings that were provisionally religious or mythological, and his genre scenes were complex, with overtones of religious skepticism and even hints of nationalism.

SOLUTION: What is the full name of the Netherlandish painter who was anomalous in that he largely forewent realistic depictions of nature, human existence and perspective?

PROBLEM: Passage: Unable to purchase a bottle of beer due to Prohibition (despite it being repealed 13 years ago), the Stooges opt to brew some of the stuff themselves.  The recipe that they use calls for three small cubes of yeast.  A mix-up with the telephone causes each Stooge to think he is the one to put in the yeast.  Nine cubes end up in the tub being used to make the beer.  The yeast continuously expands causing them to pour the beer into every container they can find, until Curly brings in the bath tub.  They successfully bottle their brew only to leave the bottles too close to an open flame.  Many of the bottles explode sending corks and suds all over the kitchen.
Unfortunately, Curly ends up selling a bottle at the black market price to a detective, landing the trio in jail. They were due to serve a short amount of time, but Curly tries to smuggle a barrel of beer in jail under his overcoat.  The barrel explodes under the heat of lights while the trio has their mugshots taken.
While in prison, the Stooges begin to plot their escape, and end up destroying the saws being used to whittle down the iron bars in their cell. A few days later, the Stooges have a run-in with a fellow convict, leading them to knock the warden (Vernon Dent) out cold, and landing them on the rock pile. While hammering away, the boys stumble on an old friend also in the clink, Percy Pomeroy, and work together to flee the prison. They are ultimately captured, and sent to solitary confinement.
After nearly half a century later, the graying trio are finally released as senior citizens, in which Curly quips upon leaving "You know what I'm-a gonna do? I'm gonna get myself a tall, big, beautiful bottle of beer!"  Moe and Larry become irate and throw Curly back into the jail, leaving him there.

SOLUTION:
What is the full name of the Stooges' old friend in jail?