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 plot revolves around Sylvia Barrett, an idealistic English language teacher at an inner-city high school who hopes to nurture her students' interest in classic literature (especially Chaucer and writing). She quickly becomes discouraged during her first year of teaching, frustrated by bureaucracy, the indifference of her students, and the incompetence of many of her colleagues. The title of the book is taken from a memo telling her why a student was being punished: he had gone "up the down staircase". She decides to leave the public school (government funded) system to work in a smaller private setting. She changes her mind, though, when she realizes that she has, indeed, touched the lives of her students.
The novel is epistolary; aside from opening and closing chapters consisting entirely of dialogue the story is told through memos from the office, fragments of notes dropped in the trash can, essays handed in to be graded, lesson plans, suggestions dropped in the class suggestion box, and most often by inter-classroom notes that are a dialogue between Sylvia and an older teacher. Sylvia also writes letters to a friend from college who chose to get married and start a family rather than pursuing a career. The letters serve as a recap and summary of key events in the book, and offer a portrait of women's roles and responsibilities in American society in the mid-1960s.
An inter-classroom note in which the older teacher is translating the jargon of the memos from the office includes the memorable epigram "'Let it be a challenge to you' means you're stuck with it." Calling a trash can a circular file comes from the same memo: "'Keep on file in numerical order' means throw in waste-basket."

SOLUTION: What type of neighborhood surrounds the school?

PROBLEM: Scientist Dr. Sebastian Caine (Bacon) has developed a serum that can make a subject invisible. His team of scientists, which includes ex-girlfriend Dr. Linda McKay (Shue) and Dr. Matt Kensington (Brolin), eventually enable the serum to work on a female gorilla and restore the animal back to visibility. Sebastian once again becomes obsessed with Linda while unbeknownst to him, she has become involved with Matt. Instead of reporting his success to the military, Sebastian lies to the oversight committee, which includes his mentor Dr. Howard Kramer (Devane), convincing his team to go right into human testing. The procedure is performed on Sebastian. It is successful and Sebastian turns completely invisible. He then enjoys sneaking around the lab in order to scare and play pranks on his fellow co-workers. They become worried that he is taking it too far. After three days, however, he is unable to revert to visibility.
Sebastian is quarantined in the laboratory due to his condition and the other researchers construct a latex mask for him to wear around the lab. Unable to cope with the isolation, he defies instructions and heads to his apartment to bring some things back to the lab. There, he happens to notice his neighbor disrobing and goes to her apartment where he rapes her. Linda warns him that if he leaves again, she and Matt will tell the committee about the experiment. Ignoring their threat, Sebastian assembles a device that runs a video loop of his heat signature in his quarters. He leaves the lab again and spies on Linda and Matt, becoming enraged when he sees them having sex.
The team soon discover that they have been watching a recording and that Sebastian has been escaping without their knowledge. Linda and Matt go to Dr. Kramer's house and confess their experiments. After they leave, Kramer attempts to warn the military but Sebastian, who has followed Linda and Matt to the house, cuts off Kramer's phone connection before drowning him in his swimming pool. The next day, Sebastian waits until all of the team is in the lab and then disables the phones and the elevator codes except for his own. He removes his clothing and latex mask and invisible, begins his killing spree, with Janice being his first victim.
Linda and the others hide in the lab, while Matt and Carter take tranquilizer guns to hunt for Sebastian, using thermal imaging goggles. While on top of a pipe, Sebastian throws Carter toward a steel bar, which hits his carotid artery, and leaves him mortally wounded. Matt tries to shoot Sebastian, but is almost killed until Linda drags him to safety. After Carter dies from his injuries, Sarah heads to the freezer to get blood for a transfusion but is killed by Sebastian. He then kills Frank with a crowbar when he lets his guard down, and locks an injured Matt and Linda in the freezer-store room, leaving them to freeze to death. Linda then constructs an electromagnet using a defibrillator and other equipment, to open the freezer door. She then gathers parts to assemble a flamethrower. Sebastian goes to the lab and creates nitroglycerin and puts it in a centrifuge with a timer which is meant to destroy the facility after he leaves; he smashes the keyboard so nobody can stop the machine.
Just as he enters the elevator to leave, Linda appears and fires the flamethrower at him. Sebastian barely manages to escape the flames and the two fight. Just as she is about to lose, Matt appears and hits Sebastian with the crowbar. Sebastian recovers and approaches Matt and Linda from behind with the crowbar but Matt deflects the blow, throwing Sebastian into a nearby circuit box, apparently electrocuting him and rendering him partially visible. Linda and Matt find the nitroglycerin about to explode and decide to climb up the elevator shaft to escape. The two are almost out when an injured and partially visible Sebastian appears. He fights with Linda, and forcibly kisses her one last time, before she grabs the elevator cable and knocks the car loose, sending Sebastian falling to his death into the explosion in the shaft below. Linda and Matt emerge from the burning laboratory and medics take them away in an ambulance.

SOLUTION: What sort of goggles do Carter and Matt wear when hunting for Sebastian?

PROBLEM: Charlie MacKenzie (Myers) is a beat poet living in San Francisco, after having broken up with yet another woman based on paranoid perception. His friend Tony, a policeman, points out that Charlie simply is afraid of commitment and tries to think of or invent any reason to break up with someone.
Charlie encounters a butcher named Harriet, and the two quickly find common bonds between them. They start to date, and Charlie learns she used to live in Atlantic City, had been involved with a trainer in Russian martial arts, and screams at someone named Ralph in her sleep. After staying at her place one night, Charlie meets Harriet's sister, Rose, who warns Charlie to be careful. As they continue to see each other, Charlie and Harriet fall in love. He arranges a dinner with her to meet his parents, Stuart and May, who both believe in conspiracy theories and get their news from the Weekly World News tabloid. While there, Charlie spots one paper that describes the story about a "Mrs. X", a bride who kills her husbands on their honeymoons using an axe, and matches all the mannerism that Harriet has shown.
Charlie becomes paranoid and asks Tony to investigate Harriet and the Mrs. X story. Tony reveals that the husbands of Mrs. X were all reported missing alongside their wives, assuring that Harriet is unlikely to be Mrs. X. Charlie remains on edge, and after a few more troubled dates, decides to break up with her. Tony later reports that a killer in the Mrs. X story has confessed. Relieved, Charlie apologizes to Harriet by reciting one of his beat poems to her from his rooftop. They make up, and Harriet explains away some of the confusion Charlie had from her history, such as Ralph being the name of a woman she knew.
Some time later, Charlie proposes to Harriet, which she reluctantly accepts after some hesitation and they arrange for a wedding in a secluded mountain hotel. After they depart, Tony learns that the confessed killer is actually a compulsive liar. He sends a photo of Harriet to the known associates of the missing husbands, and all report back that she was their friends' wife. With phone lines to the hotel down, Tony charters a plane. Once he lands, he is able to call Charlie locally and warn him that Harriet is really Mrs. X, but the hotel phone line is knocked out and power is lost.
Charlie is panicked and tries to stay away from Harriet without letting her know what he knows, but the hotel staff force him into the honeymoon suite for their first night together. Charlie finds himself alone and discovers a "Dear Jane" letter, purportedly written by him, explaining his absence to Harriet. Suddenly, Rose appears wielding an ax. Rose tells Charlie he was not supposed to find the letter, and reveals herself as the Mrs. X killer - she feels that Harriet's husbands are taking her sister from her, and so killed them on their honeymoon night and leading Harriet to believe that each husband simply left her. Charlie begins a game of cat-and-mouse to stay away from Rose while waiting for the police to arrive.
Tony leads the police into the hotel but arrests Harriet, still believing her to be the murderer. Having chased Charlie to the hotel roof, Rose swings the ax at Charlie and is thrown off the building, with only Charlie holding her up from falling to her death. Tony comes to catch her fall, where she is arrested and taken away. Charlie and Harriet resume their lives afterward as a happy couple.

SOLUTION:
What does the confessed killer turn out to be?