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: Miles Raymond is an aspiring but unsuccessful writer, a wine aficionado and a divorced, depressed, borderline alcoholic middle-aged English teacher living in San Diego, who takes his soon-to-be-married actor friend and former college roommate, Jack Cole, on a road trip through Santa Ynez Valley wine country. Though still recognized on occasion, Jack's acting career appears to have peaked years ago, when he had a role in a popular TV soap but now does commercial voice-overs and plans to enter his future father-in-law's successful real estate business after he's married. Miles wants to spend the week relaxing, golfing, enjoying good food and wine; however, much to Miles' consternation, Jack is on the prowl and wants one last sexual fling before settling into domestic life.
In the wine country, the pair visit Miles' favorite restaurant, The Hitching Post II, and meet Maya, an attractive, intelligent waitress with whom Miles is casually acquainted. Jack senses that Maya is interested in Miles, who downplays his friend's intuition, and tells Jack that Maya is married. He tells Maya that Miles' manuscript has been accepted for publication, even though it is only being considered. Later, at a tasting in a local winery, they meet an attractive wine pourer named Stephanie, who is also acquainted with Maya. Jack is immediately attracted to Stephanie and arranges a double date, to include Miles and Maya, and tells Miles that he learned Maya is no longer married ("sans rock", as he describes it). During the date, Miles gets drunk and telephones Vicki, his ex-wife, after learning from Jack earlier that day that she has remarried. They return to Stephanie's home, where Jack and Stephanie immediately adjourn to her bedroom for sex, while Miles and Maya connect through their mutual interest in wine. Maya tells Miles that she is finishing her master's degree so she can leave serving and work in the horticulture industry. Miles tells Maya about his book and gives her a copy of his manuscript. As the week progresses, Jack's affair with Stephanie continues, to the point where he believes he's falling in love with her; he bonds with her daughter and makes the suggestion to Miles that they move there for him to be closer to Stephanie. After spending the day together, Miles and Maya return to her apartment and have sex. The next day, Miles lets it slip that Jack is to be married. Disgusted with the dishonesty, Maya dumps Miles and tells Stephanie who, furious and devastated to learn she's been used, breaks Jack's nose using her motorcycle helmet and hits him repeatedly.
On finding out his manuscript has been rejected again, Miles drinks heavily and causes a scene during a wine tasting when the server cuts him off, and ends up trying to drink from the spit bucket. That night, with Stephanie gone, Jack hooks up with another waitress named Cammi, who recognized him from his acting career. Hours later, Jack shows up back at the motel room he shares with Miles naked and confessing that Cammi's husband came home early while she and Jack were having sex. Jack explains he was forced to flee without his clothes and wallet (which contains a pair of irreplaceable wedding rings). Jack convinces Miles to drive him back to Cammi's house and sneak inside, where he discovers Cammi and her husband having sex. Miles spies Jack's wallet, grabs it and runs from the house, barely escaping Cammi's irate husband, who pursues him in the nude. To explain the broken nose and cover up the infidelity to his fianc e, Jack runs Miles' convertible into a tree, giving the appearance they had been in an accident. The pair return to the home of Jack's fianc e, where he is welcomed with open arms, and Miles drives away in his battered car.
Following the wedding ceremony, Miles runs into his ex-wife Vicki and meets her new husband. After learning that she is also pregnant, Miles accepts that he will never get Vicki back. Alone, he drinks his prized wine, a 1961 Ch teau Cheval Blanc, from a disposable coffee cup at a fast-food restaurant and falls into an even deeper depression. After some time passes, Miles returns to the routine of teaching school; coming home one afternoon, he receives a voice-mail from Maya, who says she enjoyed his manuscript and invites him to visit. Ultimately, Miles is seen driving back to Santa Ynez and knocking on Maya's door.

SOLUTION: What does Stephanie use to break Jack's nose?

PROBLEM: The poem opens with a description of a village named Auburn, written in the past tense.
Sweet Auburn! loveliest village of the plain;
Where health and plenty cheered the labouring swain,
Where smiling spring its earliest visit paid,
And parting summer's lingering blooms delayed (lines 1 4).
The poem then moves on to describe the village in its current state, reporting that it has been abandoned by its residents with its buildings ruined.
Sunk are thy bowers in shapeless ruin all,
And the long grass o'ertops the mouldering wall;
And trembling, shrinking from the spoiler's hand,
Far, far away thy children leave the land
Ill fares the land, to hastening ills a prey,
Where wealth accumulates, and men decay (lines 47 52)
After nostalgic descriptions of Auburn's parson, schoolmaster and alehouse, Goldsmith makes a direct attack on the usurpation of agricultural land by the wealthy:
... The man of wealth and pride
Takes up a space that many poor supplied;
Space for his lake, his park's extended bounds,
Space for his horses, equipage, and hounds:
The robe that wraps his limbs in silken sloth
Has robbed the neighbouring fields of half their growth (lines 275 300)
The poem later condemns the luxury and corruption of the city, and describes the fate of a country girl who moved there:
Where the poor houseless shivering female lies.
She once, perhaps, in village plenty blessed,
Has wept at tales of innocence distressed;
Her modest looks the cottage might adorn,
Sweet as the primrose peeps beneath the thorn:
Now lost to all; her friends, her virtue fled,
Near her betrayer's door she lays her head,
And, pinched with cold, and shrinking from the shower,
With heavy heart deplores that luckless hour,
When idly first, ambitious of the town,
She left her wheel and robes of country brown. (Lines 326 36)
Goldsmith then states that the residents of Auburn have not moved to the city, but have emigrated overseas. He describes these foreign lands as follows:
Far different there from all that charmed before
The various terrors of that horrid shore;
Those blazing suns that dart a downward ray,
And fiercely shed intolerable day (lines 345 8)
The poem mentions "wild Altama", a river in Georgia, an American colony founded by James Oglethorpe to receive paupers and criminals from Britain. As the poem nears its end, Goldsmith gives a warning, before reporting that even Poetry herself has fled abroad:
Even now the devastation is begun,
And half the business of destruction done;
Even now, methinks, as pondering here I stand,
I see the rural virtues leave the land.
Down where yon anchoring vessel spreads the sail (lines 395 9)
The poem ends with the hope that Poetry can help those who have been exiled:
Still let thy voice, prevailing over time,
Redress the rigours of the inclement clime;
Aid slighted truth with thy persuasive strain,
Teach erring man to spurn the rage of gain;
Teach him, that states of native strength possest,
Tho' very poor, may still be very blest;
That trade's proud empire hastes to swift decay,
As ocean sweeps the labour'd mole away;
While self-dependent power can time defy,
As rocks resist the billows and the sky. (Lines 421 30)

SOLUTION: What industry is the story against?

PROBLEM: The novel begins when "Edward Henry Machin first saw the smoke on May 27, 1867" the very day of Bennett's own birth. At age 12, Denry begins his career by altering his marks in a test sufficiently to earn him a scholarship to grammar school. At 16, he leaves school to work for Mr Duncalf, the town clerk and a solicitor. Duncalf is responsible for organizing an exclusive ball; Denry "invites" himself, then also a few others in exchange for things he will need, such as lessons from dance instructor Ruth Earp. On a bet, he audaciously asks the energetic, beautiful Countess of Chell to dance. Everyone, including Machin, is in awe of the Countess (apparently based on the real-life Duchess of Sutherland) and he thus earns himself the reputation of a "card" (a "character", someone able to set tongues wagging) a reputation he is determined to cement.
Later, when Duncalf treats a disgruntled client brusquely, Denry leaves his employ after persuading the client to hire him as a rent collector. When some of the tenants fall behind, he begins loaning them money (at a highly profitable interest rate). Ruth herself is several months in arrears and tries to sneak away in the middle of the night. Denry catches her by accident, but rather than being angry, he admires her audacity and starts courting her.
While on holiday at the seaside resort town of Llandudno with Ruth and her friend Nellie Cotterill, he witnesses a shipwreck and the rescue of the sailors. Noting the interest generated, he buys a lifeboat, hires some of the stranded mariners as rowers, and conducts tours of the picturesque wreck. However, Ruth's spendthrift nature becomes alarmingly apparent during the trip and they break up.
By the end of the summer, Denry has made a substantial profit from the sightseers, which he uses to finance his boldest venture. He starts up the Five Towns Universal Thrift Club. Members deposit money little by little; once they have accumulated half the sum they need to purchase whatever it is they want, the club allows them to buy on credit, but only from stores associated with the club. Denry makes money by getting a discount from the vendors in return for access to his large customer base. When his capital starts to run out, he arranges an "accident" for the Countess's coach. He drives conveniently by and gives her a lift to an urgent appointment. On the way there, he talks her into becoming the club's sponsor, ensuring easy financing. This proves to be the making of Denry's fortune.
With his great success, he is appointed a town councillor. He also backs a new daily newspaper (to be bought out at a profit by its established rival anxious to keep its monopoly) and tricks his obstinate mother into moving into a luxurious new house. At this point, Ruth reappears in Denry's life, now the widow of a rich older man. He considers renewing their relationship, but at the last moment, realizes that Nellie is the one for him and marries her.
The crowning achievement comes when Denry decides to become the youngest mayor in the history of Bursley. To sway the voters, he purchases the rights to footballer and native son Callear, the "greatest centre forward in England", for the failing Bursley football club.
His antics are regarded with affection and admiration by most others, as shown by the book's final exchange:
"What a card!" said one, laughing joyously. "He's a rare 'un, no mistake."
"Of course, this'll make him more popular than ever," said another. "We've never had a man to touch him for that."
"And yet," demanded Councillor Barlow, "what's he done? Has he ever done a day's work in his life? What great cause is he identified with?"
"He's identified," said the speaker, "with the great cause of cheering us all up."

SOLUTION:
What important success does Denry make ?