Born in Moscow, Pushkin published his first poem at the age of fifteen. By the time he finished school as part of the first graduating class of the prestigious Imperial Lyceum in Tsarskoe Selo near Saint Petersburg, his talent was already widely recognized within the Russian literary scene. After school, Pushkin plunged into the vibrant and raucous intellectual youth culture of the capital, Saint Petersburg. In 1820 he published his first long poem, Ruslan and Lyudmila, amidst much controversy about its subject and style. Pushkin gradually became committed to social reform and emerged as a spokesman for literary radicals. This angered the government, and led to his transfer from the capital (1820). He went to the Caucasus and to the Crimea, then to Kamenka and Chisinau, where he became a Freemason.
What question would one ask from this paragraph?

QUESTION: What was going on with Pushkin in 1820?

Mr. Thorndike had risen, and, in farewell, was holding out his hand to Andrews. He turned, and across the court-room the eyes of the financier and the stenographer met. At the sight of the great man, Spear flushed crimson, and then his look of despair slowly disappeared; and into his eyes there came incredulously hope and gratitude. He turned his head suddenly to the wall. Mr. Thorndike stood irresolute, and then sank back into his chair. The first man in the line was already at the railing, and the questions put to him by the judge were being repeated to him by the other assistant district attorney and a court attendant. His muttered answers were in turn repeated to the judge. "Says he's married, naturalized citizen, Lutheran Church, die- cutter by profession." The probation officer, her hands filled with papers, bustled forward and whispered. "Mrs. Austin says," continued the district attorney, "she's looked into this case, and asks to have the man turned over to her. He has a wife and three children; has supported them for five years." "Is the wife in court?" the judge said. A thin, washed-out, pretty woman stood up, and clasped her hands in front of her. "Has this man been a good husband to you, madam?" asked the young judge. The woman broke into vehement assurances. No man could have been a better husband. Would she take him back? Indeed she would take him back. She held out her hands as though she would physically drag her husband from the pillory. The judge bowed toward the probation officer, and she beckoned the prisoner to her.
What question would one ask from this paragraph?

QUESTION: Who spoke up on behalf of the wife?

Modern criticism of Pope focuses on the man, his circumstances and motivations, prompted by theoretical perspectives such as Marxism, feminism and other forms of post-structuralism. Brean Hammond focuses on Pope's singular achievement in making an independent living solely from his writing. Laura Brown (1985) adopts a Marxist approach and accuses Pope of being an apologist for the oppressive upper classes. Hammond (1986) has studied Pope's work from the perspectives of cultural materialism and new historicism. Along Hammond's lines, Raymond Williams explains art as a set of practices influenced by broad cultural factors rather than simply the vague ideas of genius alone. Hayden Carruth, wrote that it was "Pope's rationalism and pandeism with which he wrote the greatest mock-epic in English literature." In Politics and Poetics of Transgression (1985) Peter Stallybrass and Allon White charge that Pope drew upon the low culture which he despised in order to produce his own "high art". They assert Pope was implicated in the very material he was attempting to exclude, not dissimilar to observations made in Pope's time. Colin Nicholson reads the poetry in terms of the Financial Revolution, showing how Pope responded to the corruption of the traditional 'landed interest' by the newly dominant 'moneyed interest'. Feminists have also criticised Pope's works. Ellen Pollak's The Poetics of Sexual Myth (1985) argues that Pope followed an anti-feminist tradition, that regarded women as inferior to men both intellectually and physically. Carolyn Williams contends that a crisis in the male role during the 18th century in Britain impacted Pope and his writing.
What question would one ask from this paragraph?

QUESTION: Pope is being criticized/supported for what type of work?

The old vaulted church was stripped down: there was no cloth on the altar, just a DJ's toolkit and his beer. Through the dark, I could see three bolts left in the wall from where they'd taken down the crucifix. A confessional too beaten-up to have been sold was shaking in a way that suggested activity inside, and where the pews had been taken out, a couple hundred people were testifying to the DJ's moving sermon. Rachel stepped forward into the crowd while I took a moment to drink in the ceiling's blue-lit, shadowed vault and the light-catching haze from who-knows-what rising between the DJ and the crowd. There was a terrific echo, each beat reverberating inside of the next, and the old stained-glass windows rattled in their frames. On the dance floor, people moved with their eyes closed and their hands in the air. I danced with Rachel for a while, but then something by the bar seemed to be pulling her eyes. She told me that she was heading for a drink and slipped out of the crowd. When she hadn't come back halfway through the next song, I glanced over at the bar. It was just a little set-up where someone had stacked a few crates and brought something alcoholic to share, mostly beer. Rachel was standing with a plastic cup, looking like she was having a conversation, but I couldn't see anyone else there. The next time the crowd split, I saw him. He stood in front of a blue light, so I couldn't see him clearly, but what I saw was memorable. He wore a jacket of what might have been blue velvet, and his hair gleamed black against his white skin. The blue haze seemed to stop just shy of his pallor, setting off his striking face without illuminating its details, and his wrists flashed white in the darkness. He didn't move, just stared and held his drink. The next time I saw them, his mouth was moving. She nodded and he took her arm. I watched them through the crush of dancers as they squeezed along the wall, and the feeling came to me that something was very wrong. Saturday morning, I woke up and saw that she still hadn't come home.
What question would one ask from this paragraph?

QUESTION:
Where was the crucifix