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 are also given a question about the story that requires an understanding of the relationship described in the background paragraph and the story. You need to come up with an answer to the given question; the answer will be a span from either the question or the story. In order to correctly answer the given question, you need to understand the relationship mentioned in the background paragraph and should be able to use it to understand that in the story. Your answer can not consist of any word that is not mentioned in any of these: the background paragraph, the story, or the question. You can directly copy and paste a span from the story or the question while answering the given question.
PROBLEM: Background Paragraph: Human beings invented agriculture about 10,000 years ago. This provided a bigger, more dependable food supply. It also allowed people to settle down in villages and cities for the first time. Birth rates went up because there was more food and settled life had other advantages. Death rates also rose because of crowded living conditions and diseases that spread from domestic animals. Because the higher birth rates were matched by higher death rates, the human population continued to grow very slowly. 
Story: David was studying human history. He selected two specific eras of human history, era A and era B. Era A was before humans had invented agriculture. And, era B was after the invention of agriculture. He noticed that human societies had changed dramatically after the invention of agriculture. 
Question: Did era A have higher or lower brith rate than era B?

SOLUTION: lower.

PROBLEM: Background Paragraph: In exercises such as weight lifting, skeletal muscle contracts against a resisting force (see Figure below ). Using skeletal muscle in this way increases its size and strength. In exercises such as running, the cardiac muscle contracts faster and the heart pumps more blood. Using cardiac muscle in this way increases its strength and efficiency. Continued exercise is necessary to maintain bigger, stronger muscles. If you don’t use a muscle, it will get smaller and weaker—so use it or lose it. 
Story: Phillip just came home to his apartment after taking a long, vigorous bike ride. He enters the front door to find his roommate, Brandon, sitting on the couch playing videogames and eating potato chips. Phillip tells Brandon that if he keeps being so lazy and snacking so much he's going to start looking chubby. Brandon just waves Phillip off and goes back to his game. 
Question: Are Phillip's cardiac muscles increasing or decreasing in strength?

SOLUTION: increasing.

PROBLEM: Background Paragraph: Using longitudinal data from over 100 countries, Diener and his colleagues showed that rich countries are in general happier than poor countries (Diener, Tay, & Oishi, 2013).[17] Also, life satisfaction for most countries goes up as they become wealthier over time. Diener identified three factors that influence the relationship between income and SWB. Namely, rising income most likely results in higher SWB when it leads to greater optimism, financial satisfaction and household material prosperity among citizens. Furthermore, Diener and his colleagues investigated the relationship between income and different elements of SWB. They illustrated that income has stronger influence on people’s evaluation of their lives than the positive or negative emotions they experience over time (Diener, Kahneman, Tov, & Arora, 2010).[18] The study points to the necessity to evaluate different elements of SWB separately instead of treating happiness as a single entity. 
Story: Two lands applied different economical measures over the last decade. Greenland increased productivity so they became wealthy and prosperous. Iceland chose to increase taxation and expand its government, they had little money to invest. 
Question: Which country had a lower satisfaction rate?

SOLUTION:
Iceland.