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.
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Question: Background Paragraph: A wood-decay fungus is any species of fungus that digests moist wood, causing it to rot. Some species of wood-decay fungi attack dead wood, such as brown rot, and some, such as Armillaria (honey fungus), are parasitic and colonize living trees. Excessive moisture above the fibre saturation point in wood is required for fungal colonization and proliferation.[1] Fungi that not only grow on wood but permeate its fibrous structure and actually cause decay, are called lignicolous fungi. In nature, this process causes the breakdown of complex molecules and leads to the return of nutrients to the soil.[2] Various lignicolous fungi consume wood in various ways; for example, some attack the carbohydrates in wood and some others decay lignin. The rate of decay of wooden materials in various climates can be estimated by empirical models.[3]. 
Story: The mycologist wanted to move to a rural area, to further his research, and found these two villages situated 10 miles from each other. The interesting fact about these villages was that while both villages had a forest nearby, one presented more signs of water saturation than the other, so that the rate of decay in wood was greater in Peak Forest. More fungi were present in Peak Forest. The Valley Forest was dryer, although the rain amounts were similar, partially because of a drainage system composed of ditches, that were dug by the locals. The rate of wood decay continued to increase in the Peak Forest, while being significantly reduced in the Valley Forest. 
Question: Was the breakdown of complex molecules lesser or greater in Valley Forest?

Answer: lesser.


Question: Background Paragraph: Storing large volumes of data – When storing XML to either file or database, the volume of data a system produces can often exceed reasonable limits, with a number of detriments: the access times go up as more data is read, CPU load goes up as XML data takes more power to process, and storage costs go up. By storing XML data in Fast Infoset format, data volume may be reduced by as much as 80 percent. 
Story: Robin had a busy day storing XML. At 5 AM, he stored 220 Gigabytes to the database. At 6 AM, he stored 330 Gigabytes to the database. At 7 AM, he stored 440 Gigabytes to the database. At 8 AM, he got breakfast. At 9 AM, he stored 550 Gigabytes to the database. At 10 AM, he stored 660 Gigabytes to the database. At 11 AM, she went to sleep to finish storing XML later that day. 
Question: What time did storage costs go up:  5 AM or 11 AM?

Answer: 5 AM.


Question: Background Paragraph: When a solid substance is involved in a chemical reaction, only the matter at the surface of the solid is exposed to other reactants. If a solid has more surface area, more of it is exposed and able to react. Therefore, increasing the surface area of solid reactants increases the reaction rate. Look at the hammer and nails pictured in the Figure below . Both are made of iron and will rust when the iron combines with oxygen in the air. However, the nails have a greater surface area, so they will rust faster. 
Story: John is trying to figure out how the shape of an object affects how it reacts with other elements. For that, he chose two objects, both made of the same element - object A and object B. Object A has a larger surface area, but object B has smaller surface area. He let these objects to react with other reactants to see how the processes work. 
Question: Would object A be more or less exposed to the reactants than object B?

Answer:
more.