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: A preacher witnesses his family and a group of refugees seeking shelter in his church murdered by a gang of ruthless outlaws led by Colonel Cusack.  After his wife makes him promise to never seek revenge, he instead becomes a bounty hunter. When he steps in to defend a woman in a saloon, the bad guy and his two friends (who happen to be allied with The Colonel), give him a beating and toss him into the street.
A woman with a "past", named Maggie, takes him in to care for him. He stays in her extra room, but she insists he give up his gun while at her home because she has a daughter.
The local sheriff, on Cusacks's payroll, is meanwhile trying to run off some squatters. The Sheriff's gang attempts to intimidate the squatters, but once The Preacher learns of the Sheriff's and The Colonel's dealings, he visits the squatters, who tell him they paid for the land but never got the deed. A few days later the Sheriff's posse burns down a few of the squatter's tents.
The Preacher attempts to negotiate peacefully with the Sheriff, and so visits Cusack.  Cusack tries to persuade The Preacher to join his mob, which he refuses.  The Sheriff then sends a message to The Preacher by having some of his men rough up Maggie. Unarmed still because of his agreement with Maggie, The Preacher catches the gang in the act and overcomes one of the men's guns, scaring the men off.
The Preacher gets his gun back from Maggie and sets out to visit the Squatters again, and is met by the Sheriff and some of his gang. The Preacher, now armed, tells the Sheriff that the squatters have a right to stay. Gunfire ensues, and The Preacher shoots the sheriff. The rest of the bad guys run off.

SOLUTION: What was the bounty hunter previously?

PROBLEM: Passage: In 1861, Rossier was in Siam, where he assisted the French zoologist Firmin Bocourt by taking ethnographic portraits for the latter's scientific expedition of 1861–1862, and in 1863, Negretti and Zambra issued a series of 30 stereographic portraits and landscapes taken in Siam that are almost certainly the work of Rossier. In February 1862, Rossier was again in Shanghai, where he sold his cameras and other photographic equipment before embarking for Europe. During his time in Asia it is possible that Rossier photographed in India; Negretti and Zambra issued a series of views of India at about the same time as Rossier's China views.Rossier returned to Switzerland in early 1862 and, in October 1865, married Catharine Barbe Kaelin (1843–1867). The couple had a son, Christophe Marie Pierre Joseph, who was born on 30 July 1866. Catharine died on 4 April 1867.
Rossier maintained a photographic studio in Fribourg until at least 1876 and he also had a studio in Einsiedeln. During the 1860s and 1870s, he produced a number of stereographs and cartes-de-visite comprising portraits and views of Fribourg, Einsiedeln and other places in Switzerland. An 1871 advertisement in the French-language Fribourg newspaper La Liberté offered photographs by Rossier of religious paintings by the artist Melchior Paul von Deschwanden. In 1872, Rossier applied for a passport to travel to France where he may have produced photographs. At some point between 1871 and 1884, he married again. His second wife, Marie Virginie Overney, was employed as a household servant by the landlords of his studio. They had a son, Joseph Louis, who was born in Paris on 16 March 1884, and who went on to own a café in Vevey, Switzerland. He died in 1927.
Pierre Rossier died in Paris some time between 1883 and 1898.Examples of Rossier's views of Switzerland are held in several institutions and private collections in that country. Rossier took the first commercial photographs of China and Japan, and they are now quite rare. He complained at times of the adverse effects of the climate on his photographic chemicals and some of his negatives may have been damaged en route to London from Asia. Though his surviving images are scarce, his importance to the early history of photography in Asia is great. Before his arrival in Japan in 1859, Japanese students of photography had struggled to produce satisfactory images, but Rossier's experience, instruction, and contacts with suppliers of photographic materials were extremely helpful in the development of an autonomous photographic tradition in Japan.

SOLUTION: What was the full name of the person who died on 4 April 1867?

PROBLEM: Passage: Farmer Al Falfa arrives in New York City by taxi. Yards away, a man with binoculars on a rooftop looks for visitors to rob until setting sights on Al. The man phone calls a femme fatale woman and tells her to meet him. The woman finds and invites Al to come with her to a night club.
At the night club, Al and the woman drink some wine. After consuming two glasses, he becomes intoxicated and collapses. While Al is flat on the floor, the woman heads to his bag, and takes some valuables before running off. Coming out of the bag is Al's dog which barks to wake up its master.
Just after exiting the night club, Al, who still has hangover, decides to lay his back on a lightpost. Momentarily, a hefty man comes and greets him. Figuring he has lots of cash, the hefty man invites and takes Al to the latter's buddies.
Al meets the hefty man's three friends at a poker room who then entice him to a high-stakes poker game. Over the course of the play, Al's stacks of chips become smaller and smaller. One of the poker players then employ an illegal strategy of secretly trying to pass cards to another player. Al, who is suspicious of the game, opens his bag and releases his dog which snatches and brings the cards to him. Al then comes up with a winning combination that garners him all the chips on the table, much to the other players' surprise. The dog then puts out the light, and a brawl erupts. Fortunately for him, Al is able to escape with his winnings.
Riding on a train in style, Al leaves New York City a wealthy man.

SOLUTION:
What is the full name of the person the man with binoculars set their sights on?