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: One interesting thing that has been found in plants that are consistently exposed to drought, is their ability to form a sort of "memory". In a study by Tombesi et al., they found plants who had previously been exposed to drought were able to come up with a sort of strategy to minimize water loss and decrease water use. They found that plants who were exposed to drought conditions actually changed they way the regulated their stomates and what they called "hydraulic safety margin" so as to decrease the venerability of the plant. By changing the regulation of stomata and subsequently the transpiration, plants were able to function better in situations where the availability of water decreased.
Story: Drought is major concern in the Midwest. To confront the problem scientists are trying to develop drought-resistant crops. To that end, they took a plant that was not exposed to drought. They labeled it as plant A. Then they took a similar plant, and repeatedly exposed it to drought. They labeled it as plant B. They wanted to find out what makes a plant drought-resistant.
Question: Which plant would function worse with less water, plant A or plant B?

SOLUTION: plant A.

PROBLEM: Background Paragraph: Baker's yeast is the common name for the strains of yeast commonly used in baking bread and bakery products, serving as a leavening agent which causes the bread to rise (expand and become lighter and softer) by converting the fermentable sugars present in the dough into carbon dioxide and ethanol. Baker's yeast is of the species Saccharomyces cerevisiae,[1] and is the same species (but a different strain) as the kind commonly used in alcoholic fermentation, which is called brewer's yeast.[2] Baker's yeast is also a single-cell microorganism found on and around the human body.
Story: the students used yeasts in two different experiments: they baked bread using baker's yeast, and made beer, using brewer's yeast. They learned a lot about sugars and chemistry.
Question: Which yeast is better for bakery products?

SOLUTION: baker's yeast.

PROBLEM: Background Paragraph: Mantle melting can come about three ways: (1) when the temperature rises, (2) if the pressure lowers (which lowers the melting point), and (3) if water is added, which lowers the melting point. Two of these (1 and 3) might explain why there are volcanoes at convergent plate boundaries: the temperature of the subducting plate increases as it sinks into the hot mantle (1). Sediments lying on top of the subducting plate contain water. As the sediments subduct, the water rises into the overlying mantle material. This lowers the melting temperature of the mantle (3). When the mantle above the subducting plate melts, volcanoes form above it. This leads to volcanoes in an island arc or continental arc.
Story: Ben and Mike both studied earthquakes, while Mike was more interested specifically in mantle melting and related phenomena.
Question: Which person learned about lowering the melting temperature of the mantle?

SOLUTION:
Mike.