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: More than 170 million years ago, Antarctica was part of the supercontinent Gondwana. Over time, Gondwana gradually broke apart, and Antarctica as we know it today was formed around 25 million years ago. Antarctica was not always cold, dry, and covered in ice sheets. At a number of points in its long history, it was farther north, experienced a tropical or temperate climate, was covered in forests, and inhabited by various ancient life forms. 
Story: John was reading about a fascinating story of a scientist in a science fiction book. In that novel the scientist met with a mysterious wormhole while visiting Antarctica. First, the wormhole started the time travel in present day, which was designated as point A. Then it sent the scientist to 170 million years in the past, which was designated as point B. The scientist had the rare experience of visiting Antarctica in two different time periods, 170 million years apart. 
Question: Which point would see less ice sheets, point A or point B?

SOLUTION: point B.

PROBLEM: Background Paragraph: Parallel slowdown is a phenomenon in parallel computing where parallelization of a parallel algorithm beyond a certain point causes the program to run slower (take more time to run to completion).[1]

Parallel slowdown is typically the result of a communications bottleneck. As more processor nodes are added, each processing node spends progressively more time doing communication than useful processing. At some point, the communications overhead created by adding another processing node surpasses the increased processing power that node provides, and parallel slowdown occurs. 
Story: John landed a job as an IT manager. His boss asked him to figure out problems in two similar programs, program A and program B. John found program A having parallel slowdown, but program B does not have parallel slowdown. He has to weigh the merits of using these programs. 
Question: Which program is doing less useful processing, program A or program B?

SOLUTION: program A.

PROBLEM: Background Paragraph: Parallel slowdown is a phenomenon in parallel computing where parallelization of a parallel algorithm beyond a certain point causes the program to run slower (take more time to run to completion).[1]

Parallel slowdown is typically the result of a communications bottleneck. As more processor nodes are added, each processing node spends progressively more time doing communication than useful processing. At some point, the communications overhead created by adding another processing node surpasses the increased processing power that node provides, and parallel slowdown occurs. 
Story: John landed a job as an IT manager. His boss asked him to figure out problems in two similar programs, program A and program B. John found program A having parallel slowdown, but program B does not have parallel slowdown. He has to weigh the merits of using these programs. 
Question: Is program A doing more or less useful processing than program B?

SOLUTION:
less.