TASK DEFINITION: In this task, you're given a question, along with three passages, 1, 2, and 3. Your job is to determine which passage can be used to answer the question by searching for further information using terms from the passage. Indicate your choice as 1, 2, or 3.
PROBLEM: Question: How old was Tony Benn the year that he beat Malcolm St. Clair in the London County Council elections, in Islington East? Passage 1:A major proponent of representative government was Itagaki Taisuke, a powerful leader of Tosa forces who had resigned from his Council of State position over the Korean affair in 1873. Itagaki sought peaceful rather than rebellious means to gain a voice in government. Such movements were called The Freedom and People's Rights Movement. He started a movement aimed at establishing a constitutional monarchy and a national assembly. Itagaki and others wrote the Tosa Memorial in 1874 criticizing the unbridled power of the oligarchy and calling for the immediate establishment of representative government. Dissatisfied with the pace of reform after having rejoined the Council of State in 1875, Itagaki organized his followers and other democratic proponents into the nationwide Aikokusha (Society of Patriots) to push for representative government in 1878. In 1881, in an action for which he is best known, Itagaki helped found the Jiyuto (Liberal Party), which favored French political doctrines. In 1882 Okuma Shigenobu established the Rikken Kaishinto (Constitutional Progressive Party), which called for a British-style constitutional democracy. In response, government bureaucrats, local government officials, and other conservatives established the Rikken Teiseito (Imperial Rule Party), a pro-government party, in 1882. Numerous political demonstrations followed, some of them violent, resulting in further government political restrictions. The restrictions hindered the political parties and led to divisiveness within and among them. The Jiyuto, which had opposed the Kaishinto, was disbanded in 1884, and Okuma resigned as Kaishinto president.
Passage 2:The Sex Pistols evolved from the Strand, a London band formed in 1972 with working-class teenagers Steve Jones on vocals, Paul Cook on drums and Wally Nightingale on guitar. According to a later account by Jones, both he and Cook played on instruments they had stolen. Early line-ups of the Strandsometimes known as the Swankersalso included Jim Mackin on organ and Stephen Hayes (and later, briefly, Del Noones) on bass. The band members regularly hung out at two clothing shops on the King's Road in Chelsea, London: John Krivine and Steph Raynor's Acme Attractions (where Don Letts worked as manager) and Malcolm McLaren and Vivienne Westwood's Too Fast to Live, Too Young to Die. McLaren's and Westwood's shop had opened in 1971 as Let It Rock, with a 1950s revival Teddy Boy theme. It had been renamed in 1972 to focus on another revival trend, the rocker look associated with Marlon Brando. As John Lydon later observed, "Malcolm and Vivienne were really a pair of shysters: they would sell anything to any trend that they could grab onto." The shop became a focal point of the punk rock scene, bringing together participants such as the future Sid Vicious, Marco Pirroni, Gene October, and Mark Stewart, among many others. Jordan, the wildly styled shop assistant, is credited with "pretty well single-handedly paving the punk look".
Passage 3:In 1955, he stood unsuccessfully as a Conservative candidate at the London County Council elections, in Islington East. At the 1959 general election he stood as Conservative candidate in Bristol South East, but he lost to the sitting Labour Member of Parliament Tony Benn (then known as Anthony Wedgwood Benn), whose majority was nearly 6,000 votes. However, in November 1960 Benn's father died and Benn inherited his peerage as Viscount Stansgate, with an automatic seat in the House of Lords. This disqualified Benn from sitting in the House of Commons, triggering a by-election on 4 May 1961. Benn, who wished to be allowed to disclaim his peerage, defied his inability to sit in the Commons by standing at the election, and he and St Clair were the only two candidates. St Clair's campaign displayed posters near every polling station warning voters that Benn was disqualified and that any votes for him would have no effect. Benn nevertheless won the election with nearly 70% of the votes and an increased majority of over 13,000. However, an Election Court considered what to do about the result, found that Benn was disqualified from being elected and that the voters were aware of this, and awarded the seat to St. Clair as the only duly qualified candidate. (At the time, St Clair was himself Master of Sinclair heir presumptive (19571968) to his second cousin Charles St Clair, 17th Lord Sinclair, one of the representative peers for Scotland in the House of Lords.)

SOLUTION: 3

PROBLEM: Question: What was the age of the oldest member (besides Stephanie) of the group representing Armenia in the Eurovision Song Contest 2015? Passage 1:Chemokine receptors are G protein-coupled receptors containing 7 transmembrane domains that are found predominantly on the surface of leukocytes, making it one of the rhodopsin-like receptors. Approximately 19 different chemokine receptors have been characterized to date, which share many common structural features; they are composed of about 350 amino acids that are divided into a short and acidic N-terminal end, seven helical transmembrane domains with three intracellular and three extracellular hydrophilic loops, and an intracellular C-terminus containing serine and threonine residues that act as phosphorylation sites during receptor regulation. The first two extracellular loops of chemokine receptors are linked together by disulfide bonding between two conserved cysteine residues. The N-terminal end of a chemokine receptor binds to chemokine(s) and is important for ligand specificity. G-proteins couple to the C-terminal end, which is important for receptor signaling following ligand binding. Although chemokine receptors share high amino acid identity in their primary sequences, they typically bind a limited number of ligands. Chemokine receptors are redundant in their function as more than one chemokine is able to bind to a single receptor.
Passage 2:A return to the Formula Three Euroseries beckoned for van Dam, with a 2009 campaign for Kolles & Heinz Union, the new team set up by Colin Kolles and Werner Heinz. However, the partnership was not to last, as after the rounds at Lausitz, van Dam parted company with the team. In four races, his best finish was eighteenth during the season-opening race at Hockenheim. Van Dam drove in the 24-hour endurance races at the Nurburgring and at Spa, before agreeing to drive the car of PSV Eindhoven in the Superleague Formula series. He replaced Dominick Muermans in the car, with the team lying eighteenth in the overall standings. However, he returned to the Euroseries, for the Barcelona rounds, rejoining his former team SG Formula.
Passage 3:In February 2015 she was announced as a member of the music group Genealogy (made up of singers from Armenia and the Armenian diaspora) that represented Armenia in the Eurovision Song Contest 2015. Stephanie Topalian represents the Asian continent in the formation whereas the Ethiopian Vahe Tilbian represents Africa, the American Tamar Kaprelian the American continent, the French Essai Altounian the European continent and the Australian Mary-Jean O'Doherty Basmadjian Oceania and Inga Arshakyan Armenia. The super group sang "Face the Shadow", the Armenian entry to the 2015 Eurovision Song Contest in Vienna, Austria. She became an Armenian citizen along with the other foreign members of Genealogy on 28 April 2015 after being given Armenian passports by President Serzh Sargsyan.

SOLUTION: 3

PROBLEM: Question: What is the current population of the city that Marcus personally delivered a fur coat to a customer in? Passage 1:As a retailer, Marcus believed strongly in making his store into a place where everything a customer needed could be found and, if necessary, brought to the customer's front door. He was said to have helped one customer discover the shoe size of Queen Elizabeth II so as to give the gift of stockings and a pair of shoes, and he ordered that the store stock such items as a set of Steuben plates with the Mexican national crest, "because sooner or later somebody will be going to call on the President of Mexico and need a proper gift." He personally delivered a fur coat to a St. Louis, Missouri, customer who could not make the trip to Dallas. Another story often recounted is that of a shopper who, in searching for a present for his wife, said that he was not sure what to buy, but that he would know it when he saw it. In response, Marcus inquired about the woman's clothing sizes and asked the customer to wait briefly. Taking an oversized brandy snifter from a display, Marcus gathered cashmere sweaters of various colors, arranged them in imitation of a pousse-cafe, topped with a white angora sweater to simulate whipped cream, and in place of a cherry, garnished the concoction with a 10-karat ruby ring, at a total cost of $25,350, which the customer gladly paid. When one customer decided his Christmas purchases were not sufficiently impressive, Marcus helped to arrange a full duplication of the store's display window, complete with mannequins and lighting, inside the man's home.
Passage 2:Italian driver Elio de Angelis who had joined Brabham after six years with Lotus, was the first driver to die in a works Brabham when he was killed in an accident while testing at the Circuit Paul Ricard in France. The car survived the accident relatively intact and de Angelis had only minor injuries. However, there were very few track marshals at the circuit and he was trapped in the car and killed by oxygen deprivation due to a fire before they arrived, prompting a review of testing safety, with changes including more marshals as well as medical staff and a required medical evacuation helicopter. Sadly de Angelis would die from smoke inhalation 29 hours after the crash at the hospital in Marseille where he had been taken. In the Belgian Grand Prix following the death of de Angelis, Brabham only entered one car for Patrese. From the next race in Canada, British driver Derek Warwick joined the team. According to team boss Bernie Ecclestone, Warwick, a former factory Renault driver who had been driving for the TWR Jaguar World Sportscar Championship team in 1986 after having missed out on a seat at Lotus, was reportedly the only top level driver without a current F1 drive who did not contact him in the days following de Angelis' death to ask about the drive.
Passage 3:"The Ivory Goddess" is a short story by American writers L. Sprague de Camp and Lin Carter, featuring the fictional sword and sorcery hero Conan the Barbarian created by Robert E. Howard. According to Morgan Holmes, citing de Camp friend Loay Hall, Carter did none of the writing, and the story was written by de Camp in collaboration with his wife Catherine Crook de Camp. The story was first published by Bantam Books in the paperback anthology Conan the Swordsman in August 1978. Later paperback editions of the collection were issued by Ace Books (1987 and 1991). The first hardcover edition was published by Tor Books in 2002. The book has also been translated into Italian. It was later gathered together with Conan the Liberator and Conan and the Spider God into the omnibus collection Sagas of Conan (Tor Books, 2004). The story has been translated into Italian.

SOLUTION:
1