TASK DEFINITION: You will be given a summary of a story. You need to create a question that can be answered from the story. You can create a question about characters, events, facts and beliefs, etc. Your question should be specific, try not to use pronouns instead of full names. As the stories are sometimes movie plots, they will contain actor names in parentheses. You should not use those names. Only use character names. Try to ask a question about all parts of the plot, not just the beginning.
PROBLEM:  The commercial spacecraft Nostromo is on a return trip to Earth with a seven-member crew in stasis: Captain Dallas, Executive Officer Kane, Navigator Lambert, Science Officer Ash, Warrant Officer Ripley, and Engineers Parker and Brett. Detecting a mysterious transmission, possibly a distress signal, from a nearby planetoid, the ship's computer, MUTHR, awakens the crew. Following standard company policy for such situations, the Nostromo lands on the planetoid and Dallas, Kane, and Lambert head out to investigate, damaging their ship upon landing in dust. They discover the signal is coming from a derelict alien spacecraft. Inside, they find the remains of a large alien creature whose ribcage appears to have exploded from the inside.
On the Nostromo, Ripley determines that the transmission is not a distress signal but a warning. In the alien ship, Kane discovers a chamber containing hundreds of eggs. As he inspects one, a creature springs out, spits acid through his space helmet and attaches itself to his face. Dallas and Lambert carry the unconscious Kane back to the Nostromo. As acting senior officer, Ripley refuses to let them aboard, citing quarantine regulations, but Ash violates protocol by overriding Ripley's lock and letting them in. The crew are unable to remove the creature from Kane's face, as its grip is strong and its blood is an extremely corrosive acid. It eventually lets go, crawls away, and dies.
The crew repair the ship and lift off. Kane awakens and seems healthy, but during the crew's final meal before re-entering stasis, he chokes and convulses in pain before a small alien creature bursts from his chest, killing him, and escapes into the depths of the ship to molt. Since attacking the creature with conventional weapons could result in its corrosive blood breaching the ship's hull, the crew attempts to locate and capture it with motion trackers, nets, electric prods, and flamethrowers.
Brett is sent to look for the crew's cat, Jones, and the now fully grown alien attacks him and disappears with his body into the air shafts. After a heated discussion, the group devises a plan to jettison the creature out of the ship. Dallas enters the Nostromo's labyrinthine ventilation shafts, intending to force the alien into an airlock, but it ambushes him. Lambert, realizing the alien is killing the crew one by one, implores the others to escape in the ship's shuttle. Now in command, Ripley explains that the shuttle will not support four people, and recommends that they continue with Dallas' plan of flushing the alien out.
Accessing MUTHR, Ripley discovers that Ash has secretly been ordered to return the alien to the crew's employers, who consider the crew expendable. When Ripley confronts Ash, he tries to choke her to death. Parker intervenes and knocks off Ash's head, revealing him to be an android. Parker reanimates Ash's head, and Ripley interrogates him. They learn he was assigned to the Nostromo to convince the crew to capture the creature and return it for analysis, even at the expense of the human personnel. Ash taunts them about their chances of survival against the "perfect organism." Parker turns a flamethrower on Ash.
Ripley, Lambert and Parker agree to set the Nostromo to self-destruct and escape in the shuttle. However, Parker and Lambert are ambushed and killed by the alien while gathering life-support supplies. Ripley initiates the self-destruct sequence and heads for the shuttle with Jones, but the alien blocks her path. She retreats and unsuccessfully attempts to abort the self-destruct sequence, then returns to retrieve Jones, finding the alien gone. She narrowly escapes in the shuttle as the Nostromo explodes.
As she prepares to enter stasis, Ripley discovers the Alien is aboard the shuttle. She dons a spacesuit and opens the shuttle's airlock, causing explosive decompression which forces the Alien into the shuttle's open doorway. She propels it into space by shooting it with a grappling hook, but the gun catches in the closing door, tethering the alien to the shuttle. Ripley activates the engines, blasting the alien into space. After recording the ship's final log entry, she places herself and Jones into stasis for the voyage home.

SOLUTION: Who is MUTHR?

PROBLEM:  The play is set in Bath in the 18th century, a town that was legendary for conspicuous consumption and fashion at the time. Wealthy, fashionable people went there to "take the waters", which were believed to have healing properties. Bath was much less exclusive than London, and hence it provides an ideal setting for the characters.
The plot centres on the two young lovers, Lydia and Jack. Lydia, who reads a lot of popular novels of the time, wants a purely romantic love affair. To court her, Jack pretends to be "Ensign Beverley", a poor officer. Lydia is enthralled with the idea of eloping with a poor soldier in spite of the objections of her guardian, Mrs. Malaprop, a moralistic widow. Mrs. Malaprop is the chief comic figure of the play, thanks to her continual misuse of words that sound like the words she intends to use, but mean something completely different. (The term malapropism was coined in reference to the character.)
Lydia has two other suitors: Bob Acres (a somewhat buffoonish country gentleman), and Sir Lucius O'Trigger, an impoverished and combative Irish gentleman. Sir Lucius pays Lucy to carry love notes between him and Lydia (who uses the name "Delia"), but Lucy is swindling him: "Delia" is actually Mrs. Malaprop.
As the play opens, Sir Anthony arrives suddenly in Bath. He has arranged a marriage for Jack, but Jack demurs, saying he is in love already. They quarrel violently. But Jack soon learns through the gossip of Lucy and Fag that the marriage arranged by Sir Anthony is, in fact, with Lydia. He makes a great show of submission to his father, and is presented to Lydia with Mrs. Malaprop's blessing. Jack confides to Lydia that he is only posing as Sir Anthony's son. She annoys Mrs. Malaprop by loudly professing her eternal devotion to "Beverley" while rejecting "Jack Absolute".
Jack's friend Faulkland is in love with Julia, but he suffers from jealous suspicion. He is constantly fretting himself about her fidelity. Faulkland and Julia quarrel foolishly, making elaborate and high-flown speeches about true love that satirise the romantic dramas of the period.
Bob Acres tells Sir Lucius that another man ("Beverley") is courting the lady of Acres' choice (Lydia, though Sir Lucius does not know this). Sir Lucius immediately declares that Acres must challenge "Beverley" to a duel and kill him. Acres goes along, and writes out a challenge note   despite his own rather more pacifist feelings, and the profound misgivings of his servant David. Sir Lucius leaves, Jack arrives, and Acres tells him of his intent. Jack agrees to deliver the note to "Beverley", but declines to be Acres' second.
Mrs. Malaprop again presents Jack to Lydia, but this time with Sir Anthony present, exposing Jack's pose as "Beverley". Lydia is enraged by the puncturing of her romantic dreams, and spurns Jack contemptuously.
Sir Lucius has also learned of the proposed marriage of Jack and Lydia, and determines to challenge Jack. He meets Jack, who, smarting from Lydia's rejection, agrees to fight him without even knowing the reason. They will meet at the same time as Acres is scheduled to fight "Beverley".
At the duelling ground, Acres is very reluctant to fight, but Sir Lucius will have no shirking. Jack and Faulkland arrive. Acres learns that "Beverley" is actually his friend Jack, and begs off from their duel. However, Jack is quite willing to fight Sir Lucius, and they cross swords.
David informs Mrs. Malaprop, Lydia, Julia, and Sir Anthony of the dueling, and they all rush off to stop it. Sir Lucius explains the cause of his challenge, but Lydia denies any connection to him, and admits her love for Jack. Mrs. Malaprop announces that she is Delia, but Sir Lucius recoils in horror, realising that he has been hoaxed. Sir Anthony consoles Mrs. Malaprop, Julia is reconciled to Faulkland, and Acres invites everyone to a party.

SOLUTION: What best describes Mrs Malaprop?

PROBLEM:  Each of the lives is very different from the others, although there are common threads for example the recurrent appearance of William Ewart Gladstone and Arthur Hugh Clough. Each story is set against a specific background.
In Cardinal Manning's story, the background is the creation of the Oxford Movement and the defection of an influential group of Church of England clergy to the Catholic Church. This aspect is covered in depth to explain the movement and its main protagonists, particularly Manning's hostile relationship with John Henry Newman. Strachey is critical of Manning's underhand manipulations in attempting to prevent Newman being made a Cardinal.
The background features of Florence Nightingale's story are the machinations of the War Office, and the obtuseness of the military and politicians. Influenced by Sigmund Freud, Strachey depicts Florence Nightingale as an intense, driven woman who is both personally intolerable and admirable in her achievements.
Dr Arnold is hailed as an exemplar who established the Public School system. Strachey describes this as an education based on chapel and the classics, with a prefectorial system to maintain order. He points out that it was not Arnold who was responsible for the obsession with sport, but does make it clear that Arnold was at fault in ignoring the sciences. Although Arnold was revered at the time, in retrospect Strachey sees his approach as very damaging. Strachey also mocks Arnold's efforts at moral improvement of the general public, for example his unsuccessful weekly newspaper.
Gordon s is the story of a maverick soldier and adventurer, whose original military achievements in China would have been forgotten. He was a mercenary who got into and out of conflicts on behalf of various dubious governments, but much of his experience was in the Sudan. The final disaster was when the Egyptian occupation of Sudan was almost completely overthrown by fundamentalist rebels, and someone was needed to retrieve the situation in Khartoum. The job fell to Gordon, whose instincts were to do anything but withdraw, and he became embroiled in a siege. The British government was put in an almost impossible dilemma, and when eventually they did send a relief expedition it arrived just two days too late. Strachey based Gordon s story on his diaries and letters to give an account of a strong individual almost at odds with the world.

SOLUTION:
Who was called personally intolerable and admirable?