TASK DEFINITION: In this task, you will be presented with a context passage, a question about that paragraph, and a possible answer to that question. The task is to check the validity of the answer. Answer with "Yes" or "No".
PROBLEM: Imagine you are standing in a farm field in central Illinois. The land is so flat you can see for miles and miles. On a clear day, you might see a grain silo 20 miles away. You might think to yourself, it sure is flat around here. If you drive one hundred miles to the south, the landscape changes. In southern Illinois, there are rolling hills. Why do you think this is? What could have caused these features? There are no big rivers that may have eroded and deposited this material. The ground is capable of supporting grass and trees, so wind erosion would not explain it. To answer the question, you need to go back 12,000 years. Around 12,000 years ago, a giant ice sheet covered much of the Midwest United States. Springfield, Illinois, was covered by over a mile of ice. Its hard to imagine a mile thick sheet of ice. The massive ice sheet, called a glacier, caused the features on the land you see today. Where did glaciers go? Where can you see them today? Glaciers are masses of flowing ice. <sep>How long ago was Springfield, Illinois covered by over a mile of ice?<sep>1,200 years ago

SOLUTION: No

PROBLEM: Relying on an animal to come by is risky. A flower may have to wait a long time for the right animals to come by. What if one never passes close enough to the flower? Hoping the wind will blow is also risky for a plant. What if the wind does not blow? What if the blowing pollen does not land on another flower? The wind could even blow the pollen over the ocean where it is wasted. Giving free nectar is costly. It is not a good use of the plants energy. A plant uses a lot of energy to produce nectar. Some animals may just drink the nectar. They may not carry off any pollen in return. To improve their chances, plants evolved special traits. For example, they developed ways to hide their nectar. Only certain animals were able to get at the plants hidden nectar. These specific animals might be more likely to visit only flowers of the same species. This was also a benefit for some animals. Animals also evolved special traits to get to the nectar. <sep>What do some plants provide that entices animals to visit them?<sep>Photosynthesis

SOLUTION: No

PROBLEM: California lags far behind comparable states in funding legal services for the poor, a situation so dire that only 28 percent of the civil legal needs of the state's poor and lowerincome residents are being addressed. That figures translates into 2 million people without the ability to access the justice system, according to a new study by the California Commission on Access to Justice, which also found that despite increased spending, the gap between need and services remains substantial. "As a practical matter, in most cases there can be no access to justice without access to legal assistance," said Jack Londen, past commission chair and a partner with Morrison & Foerster in San Francisco. "Whether we like it or not, sometimes landlords illegally evict tenants, children with disabilities are denied proper care, veterans don't get services guaranteed to them, and elderly people need legal assistance to escape the abuse of a caregiver." California has the highest number of people in poverty in the nation - 6.4 million, including nearly one in five children. Half the nation's increase in poverty in the 1990s, when the number of poor jumped 30 percent, occurred in California, and nearly 25 percent of the nation's poverty increase occurred in Los Angeles County alone. Even those with jobs are suffering: 26 percent of California workers earn poverty level wages. The commission's report, "The Path to Equal Justice: A Five-Year Status Report on Access to Justice in California," examined how the legal needs of the state's poor have changed in the last five years as well as both the shortcomings of the justice system and the improvements during that period. Despite increases in state funding to meet the legal needs of the poor, low interest rates (which have reduced the IOLTA fund), high unemployment and the present economic downturn have threatened any gains. <sep>Increases in state funding were made in an effort to meet the legal needs of the poor in which state?<sep>Florida

SOLUTION:
No