TASK DEFINITION: This task is about writing a correct answer for the reading comprehension task. Based on the information provided in a given passage, you should identify the shortest continuous text span from the passage that serves as an answer to the given question. Avoid answers that are incorrect or provides incomplete justification for the question.
PROBLEM: Passage: In 2011, it became apparent that the bail-out would be insufficient and a second bail-out amounting to €130 billion ($173 billion) was agreed in 2012, subject to strict conditions, including financial reforms and further austerity measures. As part of the deal, there was to be a 53% reduction in the Greek debt burden to private creditors and any profits made by Eurozone central banks on their holdings of Greek debt are to be repatriated back to Greece. Greece achieved a primary government budget surplus in 2013. In April 2014, Greece returned to the global bond market as it successfully sold €3 billion worth of five-year government bonds at a yield of 4.95%. Greece returned to growth after six years of economic decline in the second quarter of 2014, and was the Eurozone's fastest-growing economy in the third quarter. Question: In what year did Greece realize a budget surplus?

SOLUTION: 2013

PROBLEM: Passage: By the end of the 12th century, samurai became almost entirely synonymous with bushi, and the word was closely associated with the middle and upper echelons of the warrior class. The samurai were usually associated with a clan and their lord, were trained as officers in military tactics and grand strategy, and they followed a set of rules that later came to be known as the bushidō. While the samurai numbered less than 10% of then Japan's population, their teachings can still be found today in both everyday life and in modern Japanese martial arts. Question: What did samurai mean nearly the same thing as?

SOLUTION: bushi

PROBLEM: Passage: One month later, the proposed European Treaty was rejected not only by supporters of the EDC but also by western opponents of the European Defense Community (like French Gaullist leader Palewski) who perceived it as "unacceptable in its present form because it excludes the USA from participation in the collective security system in Europe". The Soviets then decided to make a new proposal to the governments of the USA, UK and France stating to accept the participation of the USA in the proposed General European Agreement. And considering that another argument deployed against the Soviet proposal was that it was perceived by western powers as "directed against the North Atlantic Pact and its liquidation", the Soviets decided to declare their "readiness to examine jointly with other interested parties the question of the participation of the USSR in the North Atlantic bloc", specifying that "the admittance of the USA into the General European Agreement should not be conditional on the three western powers agreeing to the USSR joining the North Atlantic Pact". Question: The omission of which nation from involvement in the proposed security system led to its NATO opposition?

SOLUTION:
the USA