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: Ocean acidification occurs when excess carbon dioxide in the atmosphere causes the oceans to become acidic. Burning fossil fuels has led to an increase in carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. This carbon dioxide is then absorbed by the oceans, which lowers the pH of the water. Ocean acidification can kill corals and shellfish. It may also cause marine organisms to reproduce less, which could harm other organisms in the food chain. As a result, there also may be fewer marine organisms for humans to consume.
Story: San Francisco and Baltimore both have large manufacturing and production industries and both border large oceans. San Francisco has been burning large amounts of fossil fuels recently to fuel their increased manufacturing and production of automobiles. Baltimore, however, has shifted to renewable resources recently, and as a result they have drastically decreased the amount of fossil fuels that are used to produce and manufacture steel.

SOLUTION: Oceans bordering which city, San Francisco or Baltimore, will absorb less carbon dioxide?

PROBLEM: Background Paragraph: Other pathogens spread when they get on objects or surfaces. A fungus may spread in this way. For example, you can pick up the fungus that causes athlete's foot by wearing shoes that an infected person has worn. You can also pick up this fungus from the floor of a public shower or other damp areas. After acne, athlete's foot is the most common skin disease in the United States. Therefore, the chance of coming in contact with the fungus in one of these ways is fairly high.
Story: Two people, Jim and John, are discussing their shower ritual for the morning. John takes his shower in his own apartment that he lives in by himself. Jim always takes his showers at the public gym after he finishes his workout.

SOLUTION: Which person is less likely to contract athlete's foot?

PROBLEM: Background Paragraph: The number of viruses in the oceans decreases further offshore and deeper into the water, where there are fewer host organisms.In January 2018, scientists reported that 800 million viruses, mainly of marine origin, are deposited daily from the Earth's atmosphere onto every square meter of the planet's surface, as the result of a global atmospheric stream of viruses, circulating above the weather system, but below the altitude of usual airline travel, distributing viruses around the planet.Like any organism, marine mammals are susceptible to viral infections. In 1988 and 2002, thousands of harbour seals were killed in Europe by phocine distemper virus. Many other viruses, including caliciviruses, herpesviruses, adenoviruses and parvoviruses, circulate in marine mammal populations.
Story: John is a marine biologist. He was collecting samples from six locations in the ocean, location A, location B, location C, location D, location E, and location F. Location A was near the shore, but location B was farther offshore. Location C was in shallow water, but location D was deeper into the ocean. Location E was a habitat with very few organisms, but location F was a habitat full of organisms.

SOLUTION:
Which location would see less viruses, location A or location B?