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: A thermometer is a device used to measure temperature. It is placed in contact with an object and allowed to reach thermal equilibrium with the object (they will have the same temperature). The operation of a thermometer is based on some property, such as volume, that varies with temperature. The most common thermometers contain liquid mercury, or some other liquid, inside a sealed glass tube. The liquid expands and contracts faster than the glass tube. Therefore, when the temperature of the thermometer increases, the liquid volume expands faster than the glass volume, allowing the liquid to rise in the tube. The positions of the liquid in the tube can then be calibrated for accurate temperature readings. Other properties that change with temperature can also be used to make thermometers; liquid crystal colors and electrical conductivity change with temperature, and are also relatively common thermometers. 
Story: A group of middle school students is measuring the temperature of various liquids for a chemistry lab using a mercury thermometer. They have a beaker of boiling water, a beaker of ice water, and a beaker of water at room temperature.

SOLUTION: If the mercury in the thermometer contracted did the students record a higher or lower temperature?

PROBLEM: Background Paragraph: When the temperature of reactants is higher, the rate of the reaction is faster. At higher temperatures, particles of reactants have more energy, so they move faster. As a result, they are more likely to bump into one another and to collide with greater force. For example, food spoils because of chemical reactions, and these reactions occur faster at higher temperatures (see the bread on the left in the Figure below ). This is why we store foods in the refrigerator or freezer (like the bread on the right in the Figure below ). The lower temperature slows the rate of spoilage. 
Story: A scientist is observing two chemicals react. The reaction is very slow and he wants to find a way to speed up the reaction. One day the labs air conditioner breaks and he notices the reaction is happening significantly faster than usual.

SOLUTION: Given two batches of chemicals, Batch A at 20 degrees celcius and batch B at 45 degrees C, which will react faster?

PROBLEM: Background Paragraph: New species develop naturally through the process of natural selection . Due to natural selection, organisms with traits that better enable them to adapt to their environment will tend to survive and reproduce in greater numbers. Natural selection causes beneficial heritable traits to become more common in a population and unfavorable heritable traits to become less common. For example, a giraffe’s neck is beneficial because it allows the giraffe to reach leaves high in trees. Natural selection caused this beneficial trait to become more common than short necks. 
Story: There is a creature called a Brotor that has inhabited the planet Glarknon for thousands of years. The Brotor have two distinct traits on them, but each Brotor only has one of these traits. The vast majority of Brotors have fins on their body, but there is a very small segment of the Broto population that has arms instead of fins.

SOLUTION:
Which trait has been developed by natural selection?