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: Farsightedness, or hyperopia, is the condition in which distant objects are seen clearly, but nearby objects appear blurry. It occurs when the eyeball is shorter than normal (see Figure below ). This causes images to be focused in a spot that would fall behind the retina (if light could pass through the retina). Hyperopia can be corrected with convex lenses. The lenses focus images farther forward in the eye, so they fall on the retina instead of behind it. 
Story: Kathy and Jacob are two coworkers out having a drink at a bar after a day at the office. They both wear glasses and Kathy comments that she hates that she is so farsighted and wishes there was a surgery to fix it. Jacob says that he finds it amusing she is farsighted because he himself is nearsighted. They both laugh at the opposite nature of their eye condition, and then both look at the menu on the other side of the room to decide what drinks to order next. 
Question: Who will have a harder time reading the menu?

SOLUTION: Kathy.

PROBLEM: Background Paragraph: Huge amounts of chemicals, such as fertilizers and pesticides, are applied to farm fields (see Figure below ). Some of the chemicals are picked up by rainwater. Runoff then carries the chemicals to nearby rivers or lakes. Dissolved fertilizer causes too much growth of water plants and algae. This can lead to dead zones where nothing can live in lakes and at the mouths of rivers. Some of the chemicals can infiltrate into groundwater. The contaminated water comes up in water wells. If people drink the polluted water, they may get sick. 
Story: Jimbo and Jedd are both farmers who have lakes and water wells downstream from their farms. Jimbo's products have been in high demand recently, so he has started to use very high amounts of fertilizers on his farms. Jedd has recently decreased the amount of fertilizer he uses because his products aren't wanted as much by the people in his town. 
Question: Who will be less likely to contaminate their respective water wells?

SOLUTION: Jedd.

PROBLEM: Background Paragraph: People protect areas that might flood with dams. In dire situations, they use sandbags ( Figure below ). Dams are usually very effective, but high water levels sometimes cause a dam to break. In that case, flooding can be catastrophic. Flood waters can also overflow a dam. People may line a river bank with levees to protect against floods. These are high walls that keep the stream within its banks during floods. Flood protection in one location sometimes causes problems elsewhere. For example, a levee in one location may just force the high water upstream or downstream. This will lead to flooding in a different location. Sometimes water gets so high that the river must be allowed to flood. 
Story: Two villages experienced flooding this spring. Berg village used many sandbags to protect from the dam overflowing. Creek village didn't use any sandbags, they were caught by surprise and experienced horrible damages. 
Question: Which village didn't experience catastrophic flooding?

SOLUTION:
Berg.