Neural Question Generation

Overview

Implementation of neural question generation system for reading comprehension tasks. Paragraph-level model and sentence-level model will be made available soon.

If you use our data or code, please cite our paper as follows:

@inproceedings{du2017learning,
    title={Learning to Ask: Neural Question Generation for Reading Comprehension},
    author={Du, Xinya and Shao, Junru and Cardie, Claire},
    booktitle={Association for Computational Linguistics (ACL)},
    year={2017}
}

See the paper,

"Learning to Ask: Neural Question Generation for Reading Comprehension"

Xinya Du, Junru Shao and Claire Cardie

ACL 2017

Requirements

Torch7

tds

Paragraph-level model

cd paragraph

Preprocessing:

Generate src/target dictionary

th preprocess.lua -config config-preprocess

Generate embedding files (.t7)

First replace <path to embedding txt file> in preprocess_embedding.sh with real path, then run:

./preprocess_embedding.sh

mkdir data/embs

cd data 

th convert.lua

Training:

    cd ..

th train.lua -config config-train

You can adjust the rnn size for paragraph encoder and sentence encoder by changing para_rnn_size and sent_rnn_size respectively.

Generating:

th translate.lua -model model/<model file name> -config config-trans

Sentence-level model

cd sentence

Preprocessing:

Generate src/target dictionary

th preprocess.lua -config config-preprocess

Generate embedding files (.t7)

python preprocess_embedding.py 
--embedding  <path to embedding txt file>
--dict ./data/qg.{src,tgt}.dict 
--output ./data/qg.{src,tgt}.840B.300d.npy

th ./data/convert.lua

Training:

th train.lua -config config-train

Generating:

th translate.lua -model model/<model file name> -config config-trans

Evaluation

cd qgevalcap
./eval.py --out_file <path to output file>

Sample outputs (interesting!)

Sentence: however , the rainforest still managed to thrive during these glacial periods , allowing for the survival and evolution of a broad diversity of species .

Human: did the rainforest managed to thrive during the glacial periods ?

H&S system: what allowed for the survival and evolution of a broad diversity of species?

Ours (sentence): why do the birds still grow during glacial periods ?

Ours (paragraph): why did the indigenous specis begin to grow during the glacial period ?

---

Sentence: as an example , income inequality did fall in the united states during its high school movement from 1910 to 1940 and thereafter .

Human: during what time period did income inequality decrease in the united states ?

H&S system: where did income inequality do fall during its high school movement from 1910 to 1940 and thereafter as an example ?

Ours (sentence): when did income inequality fall in the us ?

Ours (paragraph): when did high school movement begin ?

---

Sentence: about 61.1 % of victorians describe themselves as christian .

Human: what percentage of victorians are christian ?

H&S system: who do about 61. 1 % of victorians describe themselves as?

Ours (sentence): what percent of victorians describe themselves as christian ?

Ours (paragraph): what percent of victorians identify themselves as christian ?

Acknowledgment

Our implementation is adapted from OpenNMT. The evaluation scripts are adapted from coco-caption repo.

License

Code is released under the MIT license.