TASK DEFINITION: In this task, you're given a question, along with a context passage which has extra information available on certain terms mentioned in it, i.e., the proper nouns in the passage. Your job is to determine whether information from more than one term is needed to answer the question. Indicate your choice as `a` for Yes or `b` for No.
PROBLEM: Question: Who was the president of Uptown Records when Mary J. Blige worked for the label as a backing vocalist? Passage:American singer and songwriter Mary J. Blige began her career as a backing vocalist for Uptown Records in the early 1990s. She has released 13 studio albums, eight of which have individually achieved worldwide multi-platinum status. The Queen of Hip-Hop Soul and Queen of R&B (publications often refer to her as both honorific titles), Mary J. Blige is uniquely credited as the first singer to release an album singing over hip-hop beats, which created the genre "hip hop soul" which fuses elements of soul, R&B and gospel style vocals over hip hop beats. Blige's genre-changing sound, in many ways, changed and shaped the sound for modern day R&B and blue-eyed soul artists. In September 1999, Rolling Stone bestowed her first album, What's the 411? (1992), as "genre-creating". Her discography consists of 14 top 10 Billboard 200 studio albums, two live albums, two remix albums and over eighty singles—including more than 20 as a featured artist. In 2009, Billboard magazine ranked Blige as the most successful female R&B/hip-hop artist of the past 25 years. In March 2017, Billboard magazine ranked her 2006 song "Be Without You" as the most successful R&B/hip-hop song of all time, as it spent an unparalleled 75 weeks on the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart, 15 of those weeks at number one. In 2011, VH1 ranked Blige as the 80th greatest artist of all time. Moreover, she was ranked 100th on the list of "100 Greatest Singers of All Time" by Rolling Stone magazine. In 2012, VH1 ranked Blige ninth among "The 100 Greatest Woman in Music" listing.


SOLUTION: b

PROBLEM: Question: Was Forbes or the Guardian founded first? Passage:"The Lazy Song" has received generally mixed reviews from contemporary music critics. Eric Henderson of Slant Magazine noted that in song Mars "paints a portrait of Al Bundy as a young man" and Andy Gill of The Independent classified the song as a "laidback acoustic groove". Tim Sendra of AllMusic said it was one of the tracks from Doo-Wops & Hooligans that captured the laid-back groove. Scott Mervis of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette described the song as a "Jason Mraz/Sugar Ray-style reggae." Sean Fennessey, a reviewer of The Washington Post, felt the song was written in a "quality that is both endearing and damning". A mixed review came from Digital Spy reviewer Lewis Corner, who commented that the song is a "summery ditty more head-boppable than a Churchill nodding dog, which, given his current state of mind, is probably about all he could muster", giving it three stars out of five. and from Blues & Soul magazine who called it "reggae tinged" and found it to be "somewhat of a filler but for the likes of Peter Andre" is great. Entertainment Weeklys Leah Greenblatt considered that "other modes suit him less well; The Lazy Song is perhaps better left to Jason Mraz". Alexis Petridis of The Guardian, gave the song a negative review, writing that "The Lazy Song" "gets no further than the second verse before Mars – nothing if not keen to keep his fans abreast of his every activity in a world of 360-degree connectivity – announces that he's planning on having a wank". Nick Messitte writing for Forbes criticized the single for copying the "happy-go-lucky meanderings of Jason Mraz's "I'm Yours", but also using the same pattern as Travie McCoy and Mars' "Billionaire" (2011).


SOLUTION: a

PROBLEM: Question: Which of the teams defeated by the eventual champion in the 2018 College Football Playoffs had the most wins in the 2017 regular season? Passage:Alabama, coming off a national title game loss to Clemson in 2016, began the year ranked first in the AP Poll. The team opened the year with a victory over then-No. 3 Florida State in the Chick-fil-A Kickoff Game, which was the highest ranked season-opening match-up in the history of the AP Poll. Alabama won their first 11 games convincingly, but fell on the road to rival Auburn in the regular season finale, and since the two teams were tied atop the SEC West Division at 7–1, Auburn advanced to the 2017 SEC Championship Game on the head-to-head tiebreaker. Alabama fell to number six in the rankings leading up to conference championship weekend. In the final College Football Playoff rankings of the year, 11–1 Alabama controversially rose to number four after sitting idle, ahead of 12–1 Wisconsin, 11–2 Big Ten Conference champion Ohio State and 12–0 American Athletic Conference champion UCF. This earned Alabama a place in the national semi-final to be played at the Sugar Bowl against first-seeded Clemson, the third consecutive playoff meeting between the two schools. Alabama won by a score of 24–6 and advanced to the 2018 College Football Playoff National Championship against SEC champion Georgia. The Crimson Tide pulled off a dramatic come-from-behind overtime victory to win the game 26–23 and the national title.


SOLUTION:
a