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: Arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi vary across many environmental gradients. Their tolerance to freezing and drying is known to shift between AM fungal taxa. AM fungi become less prevalent and diverse at higher soil nutrient and moisture concentrations, presumably because both plants allocate less carbon to AM fungi and AM fungi reallocate their resources to intraradical hyphae in these environmental conditions. Over the long term, these environmental conditions can even create local adaptation between plant hosts, AM fungi and the local soil nutrient concentrations.
Story: Hill town had two large forests nearby. Lake forest had trees that were in a symbiotic relationship with a large variety of arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi. These fungi were less prevalent in Brook forest.
Question: Which forest had a higher soil moisture concentration?

SOLUTION: Brook.

PROBLEM: Background Paragraph: Tropical forests (rainforests) receive more insolation and rainfall over longer growing seasons than any other environment on earth. With these elevated temperatures, insolation and rainfall, biomass is extremely productive leading to the production of as much as 800 grams of carbon per square meter per year. Higher temperatures and larger amounts of water contribute to higher rates of chemical weathering. Increased rates of decomposition cause smaller amounts of fulvic acid to percolate and leach metals from the zone of active weathering. Thus, in stark contrast to soil in forests, tropical forests have little to no podzolization and therefore do not have marked visual and chemical contrasts with the soil layers. Instead, the mobile metals Mg, Fe and Al are precipitated as oxide minerals giving the soil a rusty red color.
Story: John was studying the characteristics of tropical forests. For that, he chose forests in Laos. To compare the forests in Laos with the temperate zone forests he chose forests in Ireland. He could clearly see that how they differed in important ways.
Question: Would forests in Laos produce less or more biomass than forests in Ireland?

SOLUTION: more.

PROBLEM: Background Paragraph: The Keystone XL Pipeline would transport oil from the oil sands in Alberta, Canada. The oil would travel into the United States. In the U.S. it would be refined. The pipeline is controversial. A leak could cause damage to wildlife habitat. A leak could also release enough oil to contaminate the Ogallala Aquifer. The Aquifer is crucial to agriculture and urban development in the Midwestern U.S. When burned, the fuel from the oil sands would increase pollutants. Greenhouse gases into the atmosphere would increase. The future of the pipeline is currently on hold.
Story: Lawmakers were debating the pros and cons of Keystone XL Pipeline. One group of lawmakers proposed that the pipeline be constructed. They put their proposal in proposal A. The rival group of lawmakers proposed that the pipeline should not be build. They put their proposal in proposal B. Lawmakers would now have to choose one of the proposals.
Question: Which proposal would not benefit agriculture, proposal A or proposal B?

SOLUTION:
proposal A.