Although Bin Laden, Atef, and KSM initially contemplated using established al Qaeda members to execute the planes operation, the late 1999 arrival in Kandahar of four aspiring jihadists from Germany suddenly presented a more attractive alternative. The Hamburg group shared the anti-U.S. fervor of the other candidates for the operation, but added the enormous advantages of fluency in English and familiarity with life in the West, based on years that each member of the group had spent living in Germany. Not surprisingly, Mohamed Atta, Ramzi Binalshibh, Marwan al Shehhi, and Ziad Jarrah would all become key players in the 9/11 conspiracy. Mohamed Atta was born on September 1, 1968, in Kafr el Sheikh, Egypt, to a middle-class family headed by his father, an attorney. After graduating from Cairo University with a degree in architectural engineering in 1990, Atta worked as an urban planner in Cairo for a couple of years. In the fall of 1991, he asked a German family he had met in Cairo to help him continue his education in Germany. They suggested he come to Hamburg and invited him to live with them there, at least initially. After completing a course in German, Atta traveled to Germany for the first time in July 1992. He resided briefly in Stuttgart and then, in the fall of 1992, moved to Hamburg to live with his host family. After enrolling at the University of Hamburg, he promptly transferred into the city engineering and planning course at the Technical University of Hamburg-Harburg, where he would remain registered as a student until the fall of 1999. He appears to have applied himself fairly seriously to his studies (at least in comparison to his jihadist friends) and actually received his degree shortly before traveling to Afghanistan. In school, Atta came across as very intelligent and reasonably pleasant, with an excellent command of the German language. When Atta arrived in Germany, he appeared religious, but not fanatically so. This would change, especially as his tendency to assert leadership became increasingly pronounced. According to Binalshibh, as early as 1995 Atta sought to organize a Muslim student association in Hamburg. In the fall of 1997, he joined a working group at the Quds mosque in Hamburg, a group designed to bridge the gap between Muslims and Christians. Atta proved a poor bridge, however, because of his abrasive and increasingly dogmatic personality. But among those who shared his beliefs, Atta stood out as a decisionmaker.

Question: "How many years after graduating Cairo university passed before Mohamed Atta traveled to Germany"

OPTIONS:
- no
- yes

Answer: "3"

Response: no

It is almost summer time. Spring has been very long and very rainy. Winter was very warm and very long. In the winter the snows falls on the ground. It covers all the grass. It covers all the trees. It covers all the flowers. In the winter, the chipmunk goes to sleep. The chipmunk works all summer long to gather enough food for the winter. The chipmunk gathers berries. The chipmunk gathers pine cones. The chipmunk drops the pine cones off our roof and rolls them to her favorite hiding place. Boom! Boom! Boom! The pine cones sound so loud when they drop off the roof! The snow melts away in the spring. It is off the ground in our yard by the month of May. In June, there is still snow on the mountains. The snow on the mountains is still there until July. In May the grass starts to grow. In June, the flowers bloom again. In July, we go swimming in the lake. We get to play all summer. We do not have to go to school. We do not have to gather pine cones for food. We get to play outside and we get to have cook outs. We are not chipmunks. We are children. Our mom makes us lemonade in the summer time. Our mom takes us to the beach. Our mom lets us have a lot of campfires. Our mom mows the lawn. It is summer time and now we play for 90 days and the chipmunk works for 90 days. In the winter we work and go to school and the chipmunk gets to sleep. I am glad it is summer and I am glad that I am a human child and not a chipmunk. I am glad that we get to be awake through all the seasons. I like spring. I like fall. I like winter. My favorite time of all is, for sure, summer!

Question: "What covered all the grass, trees and flowers?"

Response: "The winter snowfall"
OPTIONS:
- no
- yes

A: yes

The Golden Heian Era: The geomancers in 794 decided that Heian-kyo (modern Kyoto) would be an auspicious site for the imperial family. It was indeeduntil 1869. Grants of tax-free land over the years had been made to Buddhist temples and members of the court aristocracy. The most powerful families thus carved out for themselves whole regions that were to become the fiefdoms of Japanese feudalism. By the end of the eighth century the clans had created a hierarchy of shiki, or rights, from the highest to the lowest ranks of society. The aristocrat or court patron lent his prestige to a powerful provincial proprietor, who employed a competent estate-manager to oversee smallholders, who in turn worked their farms with dependent laborers. This elaborate structure of interdependent rights and obligations was to serve Japanese society right into the 20th century. Meanwhile, Heian court life blossomed in an effusion of aesthetic expression. Princes and princesses judged the merits of birds, insects, flowers, roots, or seashells. Literary party games held in ornate palace gardens required each guest to compose a small poem as his wine cup floated toward him along a miniature winding channel of water. Expeditions were organized to the best viewing points for the first spring cherry blossoms, and special pavilions were built to watch the rising of the full moon. Every gesture, from the most banal opening of an umbrella to the sublimest act of lovemaking, had its appropriate ceremonial. Conversation often took the form of elegant exchanges of improvised verse. The changing role of Chinese culture in Japanese life was epitomized in the language itself. In the absence of an indigenous alphabet, Japanese scholars had with the greatest difficulty tried to adapt the complex ideograms of monosyllabic Chinese to the essentially polysyllabic Japanese. Thus developed the katakana system used as a vehicle for writing Buddhist names and concepts. After rival Fujiwara factions had been struggling for years to gain control of the imperial throne, they turned to the Taira and Minamoto armies in 1156 to wage the four-year war that heralded the end of the golden age of the Heian court. The Taira, controlling the region along the Inland Sea, defeated the Minamoto armies based in the Kanto province east of the capital.

Question: "Who invaded Kyoto and what was the outcome?"

OPTIONS:
- no
- yes

Answer: "Japanese scholars"

Response:
no