TASK DEFINITION: In this task, you are given a question and a context passage. You have to answer the question based on the given passage.
PROBLEM: Why did universities begin participating less in scientific research?, Context: Scientific academies and societies grew out of the Scientific Revolution as the creators of scientific knowledge in contrast to the scholasticism of the university. During the Enlightenment, some societies created or retained links to universities. However, contemporary sources distinguished universities from scientific societies by claiming that the university's utility was in the transmission of knowledge, while societies functioned to create knowledge. As the role of universities in institutionalized science began to diminish, learned societies became the cornerstone of organized science. Official scientific societies were chartered by the state in order to provide technical expertise. Most societies were granted permission to oversee their own publications, control the election of new members, and the administration of the society. After 1700, a tremendous number of official academies and societies were founded in Europe, and by 1789 there were over seventy official scientific societies. In reference to this growth, Bernard de Fontenelle coined the term "the Age of Academies" to describe the 18th century.

SOLUTION: sources distinguished universities from scientific societies by claiming that the university's utility was in the transmission of knowledge

PROBLEM: How did higher education mimic monastic schools?, Context: European higher education took place for hundreds of years in Christian cathedral schools or monastic schools (scholae monasticae), in which monks and nuns taught classes; evidence of these immediate forerunners of the later university at many places dates back to the 6th century. The earliest universities were developed under the aegis of the Latin Church by papal bull as studia generalia and perhaps from cathedral schools. It is possible, however, that the development of cathedral schools into universities was quite rare, with the University of Paris being an exception. Later they were also founded by Kings (University of Naples Federico II, Charles University in Prague, Jagiellonian University in Kraków) or municipal administrations (University of Cologne, University of Erfurt). In the early medieval period, most new universities were founded from pre-existing schools, usually when these schools were deemed to have become primarily sites of higher education. Many historians state that universities and cathedral schools were a continuation of the interest in learning promoted by monasteries.

SOLUTION: The earliest universities were developed under the aegis of the Latin Church by papal bull as studia generalia and perhaps from cathedral schools

PROBLEM: What is special about the reactions of 1899?, Context: There are many important organozinc compounds. Organozinc chemistry is the science of organozinc compounds describing their physical properties, synthesis and reactions. Among important applications is the Frankland-Duppa Reaction in which an oxalate ester(ROCOCOOR) reacts with an alkyl halide R'X, zinc and hydrochloric acid to the α-hydroxycarboxylic esters RR'COHCOOR, the Reformatskii reaction which converts α-halo-esters and aldehydes to β-hydroxy-esters, the Simmons–Smith reaction in which the carbenoid (iodomethyl)zinc iodide reacts with alkene(or alkyne) and converts them to cyclopropane, the Addition reaction of organozinc compounds to carbonyl compounds. The Barbier reaction (1899) is the zinc equivalent of the magnesium Grignard reaction and is better of the two. In presence of just about any water the formation of the organomagnesium halide will fail, whereas the Barbier reaction can even take place in water. On the downside organozincs are much less nucleophilic than Grignards, are expensive and difficult to handle. Commercially available diorganozinc compounds are dimethylzinc, diethylzinc and diphenylzinc. In one study the active organozinc compound is obtained from much cheaper organobromine precursors:

SOLUTION:
the Barbier reaction can even take place in water