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: Predators play an important role in an ecosystem. For example, if they did not exist, then a single species could become dominant over others. Grazers on a grassland keep grass from growing out of control. Predators can be keystone species . These are species that can have a large effect on the balance of organisms in an ecosystem. For example, if all of the wolves are removed from a population, then the population of deer or rabbits may increase. If there are too many deer, then they may decrease the amount of plants or grasses in the ecosystem. Decreased levels of producers may then have a detrimental effect on the whole ecosystem. In this example, the wolves would be a keystone species. 
Story: Mike is studying the predator prey relationship. He is specifically studying three species, species A, species B, and species C. Species A is a predator; species B is the prey; and species C is a plant species that species B lives on. Mike now needs to figure out how the predator prey relationship balance the ecosystem.

SOLUTION: If species A population decrease, would it affect the ecosystem positively or negatively?

PROBLEM: Background Paragraph: While the Grants were on the Galápagos, a drought occurred. As a result, fewer seeds were available for finches to eat. Birds with smaller beaks could crack open and eat only the smaller seeds. Birds with bigger beaks could crack and eat seeds of all sizes. As a result, many of the small-beaked birds died in the drought. Birds with bigger beaks survived and reproduced (see Figure below ). Within 2 years, the average beak size in the finch population increased. Evolution by natural selection had occurred. 
Story: The explorers visited Galapagos 1 and Galapagos 2, both islands part of the same archipelago. Island 1 had experienced a drought in recent years. Both islands had populations of birds living there.

SOLUTION: Which island didn't have the average beak size in the finch population increase?

PROBLEM: Background Paragraph: The lungs of mammals are unique in having alveoli . These are tiny, sac-like structures. Each alveolus is surrounded by a network of very small blood vessels (see Figure below ). Because there are millions of alveoli in each lung, they greatly increase the surface area for gas exchange between the lungs and bloodstream. Human lungs, for example, contain about 300 million alveoli. They give the lungs a total surface area for gas exchange of up to 90 square meters (968 square feet). That’s about as much surface area as one side of a volleyball court!. 
Story: Two friends read about respiratory systems. Paul read more about the lungs of mammals, while Pete read more about the lungs of frogs.

SOLUTION:
Which student read less about a network of very small blood vessels?