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:  A narrator explains how humans were unaware that a race of intelligent extraterrestrials were making plans to occupy Earth. Ray Ferrier is a divorced crane operator longshoreman who works at a dock in Brooklyn and lives in Bayonne, NJ. Ray is estranged from his children. His former wife, Mary Ann, later drops off the children, ten-year-old daughter Rachel and teenage son Robbie, at Ray's house in Bayonne on her way to visit her parents in Boston. Unexplained changes in the weather occur, including lightning that strikes multiple times in the middle of an intersection and disrupts all electricity.
Ray joins the crowd at the scene of the lightning strikes, and witnesses a massive "Tripod" war machine emerge from the ground and use alien weaponry to incinerate most of the witnesses. Ray collects his children, steals a car and drives to Mary Ann's home in suburban New Jersey to take refuge. The next morning, he discovers that a Boeing 747 has crashed in the street. A news team scavenging for food explain that there are multiple Tripods that have attacked major cities including New York City, Washington, D.C., and London, and have force shields to protect them from human weapons. They also explain that the lightning was how the aliens were able to enter the Tripods. Ray decides to take the kids to Boston to be with their mother. The three are forced to abandon the stolen car after a mob takes it by force. They later survive a Tripod attack which causes a Hudson River ferry to sink. During a desperate battle between U.S. Marines and the aliens, Ray is forced to choose between being separated from Rachel and preventing Robbie from joining the fight; he lets Robbie go with the Marines, who are overwhelmed. While escaping, Ray and Rachel are offered shelter by Harlan Ogilvy, who presumes that the aliens had buried their technology on Earth millions of years ago and has delusions that they can fight against the aliens themselves by observing their operations, as they are right next to their camp.
The three remain undetected for two days, even as a probe and a group of the aliens themselves explore the basement. The next morning, Ogilvy suffers a mental breakdown while witnessing a Tripod harvesting human blood and tissue to fertilize an alien vegetation. Concerned that the aliens may hear Ogilvy's madness, Ray is forced to murder him. The basement hideout is exposed when a second probe catches them sleeping. Rachel is soon abducted by a nearby Tripod and Ray allows himself to be abducted, being placed in the same cage with Rachel and other prisoners. As the aliens select him for harvesting, Ray takes a belt of grenades into the machine, having pulled out the pins. The Tripod is destroyed and releases the cage, with Ray and Rachel making it out alive.
Ray and Rachel arrive in a devastated Boston, where the Tripods are collapsing. Ray notices birds landing on a nearby Tripod, indicating that its shields are down. Ray alerts the soldiers escorting his refugee group and they shoot it down. As soldiers advance on the downed Tripod, a hatch opens releasing a liquid and then a sickly alien struggles halfway out, and then succumbs to its disease immediately. Ray and Rachel reach Mary Ann's parents' house, where they are reunited with Mary Ann and, to their surprise, Robbie. The closing narration reveals that the aliens were immune to man's machines but were not immune to the microbes present on Earth and that, "From the moment the invaders arrived, breathed our air, ate and drank, they were doomed."

SOLUTION: When does Harlan Ogilvy have a mental breakdown?

PROBLEM:  The novel takes place in the fictional town of Socartes, Spain. The town's name refers to the philosopher Socrates and his ideas about internal and external beauty. It tells the story of Marianela (sometimes referred to as "Nela"), a poor orphan girl with an ugly face, and her love for Pablo, a blind boy, who has feelings for Nela as well. Marianela frequently sings to Pablo, and he believes she is beautiful because of her voice. Pablo's father asks a famous doctor, named Teodoro Golfin, to come and examine Pedro to see if his sight can be restored. Pablo, full of hope at the prospect, promises La Nela that he will marry her after the operation if it is successful. He is convinced that La Nela is beautiful, even when she tells him otherwise. In the meantime, Pablo's father plans for Pablo to marry his beautiful cousin, Florentina, but tells neither of them about it. Florentina comes to Socartes and when Marianela first sees her, she mistakes her for the Virgin Mary because of her beauty. When Florentina is out walking with Pablo and Marianela, she expresses her pity for La Nela because she is poor, abandoned and nobody loves her. She vows to take charge of Nela and clothe, educate her, and have La Nela live with her like a sister.
Pablo eventually gets the operation that gives him his sight. Before seeing Nela, he sees Florentina and proposes to her instead. Because of this, Nela attempts suicide but is saved by Teodoro Golf n, the eye doctor who cured Pedro. He and Florentina take Nela to Pablo's villa and take care of her while she is hiding away from Pablo because of her looks. Then, due to Pablo's desire to see her, Pablo finds his way to La Nela's room and serenades Florentina. He then sees La Nela in bed and confuses her for "just a poor girl who Don Teodoro took in from the street." La Nela then admits it is she and kisses his hand three times. Upon the third kiss, she dies of a broken heart and leaves Pablo distraught.

SOLUTION: In which country does the setting of this story take place?

PROBLEM:  The play is set at "Fin de si cle 15-1600. Midsummer night on the terrace of the Palace at Whitehall, overlooking the Thames. The Palace clock chimes four quarters and strikes eleven."
The Man arrives at Whitehall where he meets a Beefeater guard. He persuades the Beefeater to allow him to stay to meet his girlfriend, a lady of the court, who will be arriving soon for a secret tryst. The Man notes down various interesting phrases used by the Beefeater (all quotations from Shakespeare plays). The Lady arrives, cloaked, but it is not the woman he is expecting. The Man immediately falls for her. While also noting down her own interesting expressions in his notebook, he tells her how beautiful and desirable she is. The Dark Lady arrives, and is shocked to see her lover attempting to seduce another woman. She tells The Lady not to trust The Man, as he is a mere actor. She then recognises that The Lady is Queen Elizabeth. The Man reveals that he is William Shakespeare. The Queen demands that he should apologise to her, but Shakespeare insists that his family is more respectable than hers, and that she only has her job by accident of birth. The Dark Lady is shocked by Shakespeare's frankness, but the queen forgives him. Shakespeare complains that his worst plays, As You Like It and Much Ado About Nothing, are the most popular, but is most proud of the ones with intelligent female characters, such All's Well that End's Well. If the queen would establish a National Theatre, he could create more of the kind of plays he wants to, rather than those that please the public. The queen says she'll look into it, but does not think the idea will please her Treasurer. She thinks it will probably be another 300 years before the idea will gain widespread support. She upbraids the Beefeater for allowing Shakespeare into the palace grounds, and tells him to make sure that Shakespeare leaves.

SOLUTION:
Why does the Queen demand an apology from Shakespeare?