TASK DEFINITION: In this task, you will be shown an extract from a movie plot and a question. You need to provide the correct answer for it. Short answers containing words that are present in the passage are preferred.
PROBLEM: Returning from a Hong Kong business trip, Beth Emhoff (Gwyneth Paltrow) has a layover in Chicago to rendezvous with a former lover before returning to her family in suburban Minneapolis. She appears to have contracted a cold during her trip. Her six-year-old son from a previous marriage, Clark, also becomes symptomatic and is sent home from school. Beth's condition worsens and two days later she collapses with severe seizures. Her husband, Mitch (Matt Damon), rushes her to the hospital, but she dies of an unknown cause.Mitch returns home and finds that Clark has also died from a similar infection. Mitch is put in isolation but seems to be immune to the disease. He is released and returns home to his teenaged daughter Jory, who had been living with Mitch's former wife and her husband and has decided to stay with Mitch since he's now all alone. They face decaying social order and rampant looting of stores and homes. Mitch is unsure if Jory has inherited his immunity and he struggles with the frustration of quarantine, his desire to protect his daughter and learning that his wife was cheating on him immediately prior to both her death and that of his stepson.In Atlanta, representatives of the Department of Homeland Security meet with Dr. Ellis Cheever (Laurence Fishburne) of the CDC and express fears that the disease is a bio weapon intended to cause terror over the Thanksgiving weekend. Dr. Cheever dispatches Dr. Erin Mears (Kate Winslet), an Epidemic Intelligence Service officer, to Minneapolis to begin investigating. Mears traces the outbreak back to Emhoff while negotiating with local bureaucrats initially reluctant to commit resources for a proper public health response to the virus. Dr. Mears later becomes infected and dies.At the CDC, Dr. Ally Hextall (Jennifer Ehle) determines the virus is a mix of genetic material from pig and bat viruses. Work on a cure stalls because scientists cannot discover a cell culture within which to grow the newly identified Meningoencephalitis Virus One (MEV-1).UCSF professor Dr. Ian Sussman (Elliott Gould) violates orders from Cheever (relayed through Hextall) to destroy his samples, and identifies a usable MEV-1 cell culture using bat cells. Hextall uses the breakthrough to work on a vaccine. Other scientists determine the virus is spread by fomites, with a basic reproduction number of four when the virus mutates, with projections of one in twelve of the population being infected, and a 25-30% mortality rate.Conspiracy theorist Alan Krumwiede (Jude Law) posts videos about the virus on his popular blog. In one video, he shows himself sick and later claims he recovered using a homeopathic cure derived from forsythia. In a panic, people seeking forsythia overwhelm pharmacies, spreading and accelerating the contagion as the infected come into contact with healthy people.Krumwiede's claims attract national attention. During a television interview he discloses that Dr. Cheever had secretly informed friends and family to leave Chicago just before the city was quarantined. Cheever is then informed the government will investigate and may charge him for leaking information. Later it is revealed Krumwiede had faked being infected by the virus in an attempt to increase profits for shareholders in companies producing and selling forsythia. Krumwiede is arrested for conspiracy and securities fraud, only to walk free when his many supporters successfully raise funds to provide for his bail.Using an attenuated virus Dr. Hextall identifies a possible vaccine. To cut out the lengthy time it would take to obtain informed consent from infected patients, Dr. Hextall inoculates herself with the experimental vaccine and immediately visits her gravely ill father, who has been infected with MEV-1. The doctor does not contract MEV-1 and the vaccine is declared a success.The vaccine's production is rapidly increased, but due to limited production, the CDC awards vaccinations by lottery based on birth date. Inoculations take place for one full year until every survivor is vaccinated. First responders, doctors and others designated by the government are declared exempt from the lottery. Dr. Cheever gives his fast-tracked MEV-1 vaccination to the son of Roger (John Hawkes), a CDC janitor who had overheard Dr. Cheever's phone call warning his girlfriend to leave Chicago.Dr. Leonora Orantes (Marion Cotillard), a WHO epidemiologist, travels to Hong Kong to follow the Beth Emhoff lead. She collaborates with Sun Feng (Chin Han) and other local epidemiologists and public health officials; they identify Emhoff as patient zero. As the virus spreads, Feng kidnaps Orantes to use her as leverage to obtain MEV-1 vaccine doses for his village. Orantes spends months living with the villagers until the vaccine is announced. Feng exchanges Orantes for the vaccine doses. Her colleague mentions that the exchanged doses were placebos and Orantes rushes away to warn them.The death toll reached 2.5 million in the U.S. and 26 million worldwide. Dr. Hextall places samples of MEV-1 in cryogenic storage, alongside samples of H1N1 and SARS.The source of the virus is revealed to viewers. A bulldozer (coincidently, operating for the company Emhoff works for) knocks down a palm tree disturbing some bats, with one finding shelter and food in a banana tree. That bat then flies over a pig pen, dropping a chunk of banana from its mouth, which is then eaten by a piglet. Chinese chefs later collect pigs from the pen and take them to a Hong Kong casino. A chef is called away from his preparations of a piglet, and casually wipes his hands on his apron. The chef then shakes hands with Beth Emhoff, giving her the mix of bat and pig viruses that makes her patient zero and the origin of the MEV-1 virus., Question: Who posts videos about the virus in his popular blog?

SOLUTION: Answer: Alan Krumwiede

PROBLEM: Omar Ali is a young man living in Battersea in the Wandsworth area of South London, right by the railway station[4] during the mid-1980s. His father, Hussein (known to the rest of the family as Papa), once a famous left-wing British Pakistani journalist in Bombay, lives in London but hates Britain's society and its international politics. His dissatisfaction with the world and a family tragedy have led him to sink into alcoholism, so that Omar has to be his carer. By contrast, Omar's paternal uncle Nasser is a successful entrepreneur and an active member of the London Pakistani community. Papa asks Nasser to give Omar a job and, after working for a brief time as a car washer in one of his uncle's garages, he is assigned the task of managing a run-down laundrette and turning it into a profitable business.At Nasser's, Omar meets a few other members of the Pakistani community: Tania, Nasser's daughter and possibly a future bride; and Salim, who trafficks drugs and hires him to deliver them from the airport. While driving Salim and his wife home that night, the three of them get attacked by a group of right-wing extremist street punks. Their apparent leader turns out to be Johnny, Omar's childhood friend. Omar tries to reestablish their past friendship, offering Johnny a job and the opportunity to adopt a better life by working to fix up the laundrette with him. Johnny decides to help with the laundrette and they resume a romantic relationship that (it is implied) had been interrupted after school. Running out of money, Omar and Johnny sell one of Salim's drug deliveries to make cash for the laundrette's substantial renovation.On the opening day of the laundrette, Omar confronts Johnny on his fascist past. Johnny, feeling guilty, tells him that though he cannot make it up to him, he is with him now. Nasser visits the laundrette with his mistress, Rachel. As they dance together in the laundrette, Omar and Johnny make love in the back room, narrowly escaping discovery. At the inauguration, Tania confronts Rachel about having an affair with her father. Rachel accuses Nasser of having invited Tania on purpose to have her insulted, and storms off despite his protests. Later that night, a drunk Omar proposes to Tania, who accepts on the condition that he raise money to get away. Soon after, Salim reveals to Omar that he is on to them, and demands his money back. Omar's father stops by late in the night and appeals to Johnny to persuade Omar to go to college because he is unhappy with his son running a laundrette.Offering Salim a chance to invest in his businesses as a much needed 'clean outlet' for his money, Omar decides to take over two laundrettes owned by a friend of Nasser. Salim drives Johnny and Omar to view one of the properties, and he expresses his dislike of the British non-working punks in Johnny's gang. He attempts to run them over and injures one of them. Meanwhile, Rachel falls ill with a skin rash apparently caused by a ritual curse from Nasser's wife, and decides it is best for all that she and Nasser part ways. The next day Tania drops by the laundrette and tells Johnny she is leaving, asking him to come along. He refuses, implicitly revealing the truth about himself and Omar and she departs wordlessly. After Salim arrives and enters the laundrette, the punks, who had been lying in wait, trash his car. When he runs out on noticing them, he is ambushed and viciously attacked. Johnny decides to interrupt and defend him, despite their mutual dislike, and the punks turn their attention to him instead. As he refuses to fight back, they beat him savagely until Omar returns and intervenes, protecting Johnny as the punks trash the laundrette and flee the scene.Nasser visits Papa, and the two discuss their respective failures, agreeing between them that only Omar's future matters now. Nasser sees Tania at the train platform while she is running away, and he shouts to her but she disappears. Meanwhile, at the laundrette, Omar nurses Johnny, and the two bond. The film ends with a scene of them shirtless, playfully splashing each other with water from a sink, implying that they are continuing their relationship together., Question: Who drives Johnny and Omar to look at the properties?

SOLUTION: Answer: Nasser

PROBLEM: In 1870, two young men, Jim Averill and Billy Irvine, graduate from Harvard College. The Reverend Doctor speaks to the graduates on the association of "the cultivated mind with the uncultivated" and the importance of education. Irvine, brilliant but obviously intoxicated, follows this with his opposing, irreverent views. A celebration is then held after which the male students serenade the women present, including Averill's girlfriend.Twenty years later, Averill is passing through the booming town of Casper, Wyoming, on his way north to Johnson County where he is now a Marshal. Poor European immigrants new to the region are in conflict with wealthy, established cattle barons organized as the Wyoming Stock Growers Association; the newcomers sometimes steal their cattle for food. Nate Champion a friend of Averill and an enforcer for the stockmen kills a settler for suspected rustling and dissuades another from stealing a cow. At a formal board meeting, the head of the Association, Frank Canton, tells members, including a drunk Irvine, of plans to kill 125 named settlers, as thieves and anarchists. Irvine leaves the meeting, encounters Averill, and tells him of the Association's plans. As Averill leaves, he exchanges bitter words with Canton. Canton slaps Averill across the face, which is immediately retaliated, knocking Canton to the floor. That night, Canton recruits men to kill the named settlers.Ella Watson, a Johnson County bordello madam from Quebec who accepts stolen cattle as payment for use of her prostitutes, is infatuated with both Averill and Champion. Averill and Watson skate in a crowd, then dance alone, in an enormous roller skating rink called "Heaven's Gate", which has been built by local entrepreneur John L. Bridges. Averill gets a copy of the Association's death list from a baseball-playing U.S. Army captain and later reads the names aloud to the settlers, who are thrown into terrified turmoil. Cully, a station master and friend of Averill's, sees the train with Canton's posse heading north and rides off to warn the settlers but is murdered en route. Later, a group of men come to Watson's bordello and rape her. All but one are shot and killed by Averill. Champion, realizing that his landowner bosses seek to eliminate Watson, goes to Canton's camp and shoots the remaining rapist, then refuses to participate in the slaughter.Canton and his men encounter one of Champion's friends leaving a cabin with Champion and his friend Nick inside, and a gunfight ensues. Attempting to save Champion, Watson arrives in her wagon and shoots one of the hired guns before escaping on horseback. Champion and his two friends are killed in a massive, merciless barrage which ends with his cabin in flames. Watson warns the settlers of Canton's approach at another huge, chaotic gathering at "Heaven's Gate". The agitated settlers decide to fight back; Bridges leads the attack on Canton's gang. With the hired invaders now surrounded, both sides suffer casualties (including a drunken, poetic Irvine) as Canton leaves to bring help. Watson and Averill return to Champion's charred and smoking cabin and discover his body along with a hand written letter documenting his last minutes alive.The next day, Averill reluctantly joins the settlers, with their cobbled-together siege machines and explosive charges, in an attack against Canton's men and their makeshift fortifications. Again there are heavy casualties on both sides, before the U.S. Army, with Canton in the lead, arrives to stop the fighting and save the remaining besieged mercenaries. Later, at Watson's cabin, Bridges, Watson and Averill prepare to leave for good. But they are ambushed by Canton and two others who shoot and kill Bridges and Watson. After killing Canton and his men, a grief-stricken Averill holds Watson's body in his arms.In 1903 about a decade later a well-dressed, beardless, but older-looking Averill walks the deck of his yacht off Newport, Rhode Island. He goes below, where an attractive middle-aged woman is sleeping in a luxurious boudoir. The woman, Averill's old Harvard girlfriend (perhaps now his wife), awakens and asks him for a cigarette. Silently he complies, lights it, and returns to the deck., Question: Where is Ella Watson from?

SOLUTION:
Answer: Quebec