TASK DEFINITION: In this task, you're given passages that contain mentions of names of people, places, or things. Some of these mentions refer to the same person, place, or thing. Your job is to write questions that evaluate one's understanding of such references. Good questions are expected to link pronouns (she, her, him, his, their, etc.) or other mentions to people, places, or things to which they may refer. Do not ask questions that can be answered correctly without understanding the paragraph or having multiple answers. Avoid questions that do not link phrases referring to the same entity. For each of your questions, the answer should be one or more phrases in the paragraph, and it should be unambiguous.
PROBLEM: Passage: Three princely states bordering IndiaNepal, Bhutan and Sikkimwere not integrated into the Republic of India in the period between 1947 and 1950. Nepal had been recognised by the British and the Government of India as being de jure independent. Bhutan had in the British period been considered a protectorate outside the international frontier of India. The Government of India entered into a treaty with Bhutan in 1949 continuing this arrangement, and providing that Bhutan would abide by the advice of the Government of India in the conduct of its external affairs.Historically, Sikkim was a British dependency, with a status similar to that of the other princely states, and was therefore considered to be within the frontiers of India in the colonial period. On independence, however, the Chogyal of Sikkim resisted full integration into India. Given the region's strategic importance to India, the Government of India signed first a Standstill Agreement and then in 1950 a full treaty with the Chogyal of Sikkim which in effect made it a protectorate which was no longer part of India. India had responsibility for defence, external affairs and communications, and ultimate responsibility for law and order, but Sikkim was otherwise given full internal autonomy. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, the Chogyal Palden Thondup Namgyal, supported by the minority Bhutia and Lepcha upper classes, attempted to negotiate greater powers, particularly over external affairs, to give Sikkim more of an international personality. These policies were opposed by Kazi Lhendup Dorji and the Sikkim State Congress, who represented the ethnic Nepali middle classes and took a more pro-Indian view.In April 1973, anti-Chogyal agitation broke out and protestors demanded popular elections. The Sikkim police were unable to control the demonstrations, and Dorji asked India to exercise its responsibility for law and order and intervene. India facilitated negotiations between the Chogyal and Dorji, and produced an agreement, which envisaged the reduction of the Chogyal to the role of a constitutional monarch and the holding of elections based on a new ethnic power-sharing formula. The Chogyal's opponents won an overwhelming victory, and a new Constitution was drafted providing for Sikkim to be associated with the Republic of India. On 10 April 1975, the Sikkim Assembly passed a resolution calling for the state to be fully integrated into India. This resolution was endorsed by 97 percent of the vote in a referendum held on 14 April 1975, following which the Indian Parliament amended the constitution to admit Sikkim into India as its 22nd state.

SOLUTION: What state did the Government of India sign a Standstill Agreement with first?

PROBLEM: Passage: Politically, Istanbul is seen as the most important administrative region in Turkey. Many politicians, including the President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, are of the view that a political party's performance in Istanbul is more significant than its general performance overall. This is due to the city's role as Turkey's financial centre, its large electorate and the fact that Erdogan himself was elected Mayor of Istanbul in 1994. In the run-up to local elections in 2019, Erdogan claimed 'if we fail in Istanbul, we will fail in Turkey'.Historically, Istanbul has voted for the winning party in general elections since 1995. Since 2002, the right-wing Justice and Development Party (AKP) has won pluralities in every general election, with 41.74% of the vote in the most recent parliamentary election on 24 June 2018. Erdogan, the AKP's presidential candidate, received exactly 50.0% of the vote in the presidential election held on the same day. Starting with Erdogan in 1994, Istanbul has had a conservative mayor for 25 years, until 2019. The second largest party in Istanbul is the centre-left Republican People's Party (CHP), which is also the country's main opposition. The left-wing pro-Kurdish Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) is the city's third largest political force due to a substantial number of Kurdish people migrating from south-eastern Turkey.
More recently, Istanbul and many of Turkey's metropolitan cities are following a trend away from the government and their right-wing ideology. In 2013 and 2014, large-scale anti-AKP government protests began in Istanbul and spread throughout the nation. This trend first became evident electorally in the 2014 mayoral election where the centre-left opposition candidate won an impressive 40% of the vote, despite not winning. The first government defeat in Istanbul occurred in the 2017 constitutional referendum, where Istanbul voted 'No' by 51.4% to 48.6%. The AKP government had supported a 'Yes' vote and won the vote nationally due to high support in rural parts of the country. The biggest defeat for the government came in the 2019 local elections, where their candidate for Mayor, former Prime Minister Binali Yldrm, was defeated by a very narrow margin by the opposition candidate Ekrem Imamoglu. Imamoglu won the vote with 48.77% of the vote, against Yldrm's 48.61%. Similar trends and electoral successes for the opposition were also replicated in Ankara, Izmir, Antalya, Mersin, Adana and other metropolitan areas of Turkey.
Administratively, Istanbul is divided into 39 districts, more than any other province in Turkey. As a province, Istanbul sends 98 Members of Parliament to the Grand National Assembly of Turkey, which has a total of 600 seats. For the purpose of parliamentary elections, Istanbul is divided into three electoral districts; two on the European side and one on the Asian side, electing 28, 35 and 35 MPs respectively.

SOLUTION: What is the first name of the person who was elected Mayor of Istanbul in 1994?

PROBLEM: Passage: As Pei, neared the end of his secondary education, he decided to study at a university. He was accepted to a number of schools, but decided to enroll at the University of Pennsylvania. Pei's choice had two roots. While studying in Shanghai, he had closely examined the catalogs for various institutions of higher learning around the world. The architectural program at the University of Pennsylvania stood out to him. The other major factor was Hollywood. Pei was fascinated by the representations of college life in the films of Bing Crosby, which differed tremendously from the academic atmosphere in China. "College life in the U.S. seemed to me to be mostly fun and games", he said in 2000. "Since I was too young to be serious, I wanted to be part of it ... You could get a feeling for it in Bing Crosby's movies. College life in America seemed very exciting to me. It's not real, we know that. Nevertheless, at that time it was very attractive to me. I decided that was the country for me."In 1935 Pei boarded a boat and sailed to San Francisco, then traveled by train to Philadelphia. What he found, however, differed vastly from his expectations. Professors at the University of Pennsylvania based their teaching in the Beaux-Arts style, rooted in the classical traditions of Greece and Rome. Pei was more intrigued by modern architecture, and also felt intimidated by the high level of drafting proficiency shown by other students. He decided to abandon architecture and transferred to the engineering program at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Once he arrived, however, the dean of the architecture school commented on his eye for design and convinced Pei to return to his original major.MIT's architecture faculty was also focused on the Beaux-Arts school, and Pei found himself uninspired by the work. In the library he found three books by the Swiss-French architect Le Corbusier. Pei was inspired by the innovative designs of the new International style, characterized by simplified form and the use of glass and steel materials. Le Corbusier visited MIT in November 1935, an occasion which powerfully affected Pei: "The two days with Le Corbusier, or 'Corbu' as we used to call him, were probably the most important days in my architectural education." Pei was also influenced by the work of US architect Frank Lloyd Wright. In 1938 he drove to Spring Green, Wisconsin, to visit Wright's famous Taliesin building. After waiting for two hours, however, he left without meeting Wright.

SOLUTION:
Who did the architectural program at the University of Pennsylvania stood out to?