TASK DEFINITION: In this task, you're given a question, along with a context passage which has extra information available on certain terms mentioned in it, i.e., the proper nouns in the passage. Your job is to determine whether information from more than one term is needed to answer the question. Indicate your choice as 'a' for Yes or 'b' for No.
PROBLEM: Question: Who was the president of Uptown Records when Mary J. Blige worked for the label as a backing vocalist? Passage:American singer and songwriter Mary J. Blige began her career as a backing vocalist for Uptown Records in the early 1990s. She has released 13 studio albums, eight of which have individually achieved worldwide multi-platinum status. The Queen of Hip-Hop Soul and Queen of R&B (publications often refer to her as both honorific titles), Mary J. Blige is uniquely credited as the first singer to release an album singing over hip-hop beats, which created the genre "hip hop soul" which fuses elements of soul, R&B and gospel style vocals over hip hop beats. Blige's genre-changing sound, in many ways, changed and shaped the sound for modern day R&B and blue-eyed soul artists. In September 1999, Rolling Stone bestowed her first album, What's the 411? (1992), as "genre-creating". Her discography consists of 14 top 10 Billboard 200 studio albums, two live albums, two remix albums and over eighty singlesincluding more than 20 as a featured artist. In 2009, Billboard magazine ranked Blige as the most successful female R&B/hip-hop artist of the past 25 years. In March 2017, Billboard magazine ranked her 2006 song "Be Without You" as the most successful R&B/hip-hop song of all time, as it spent an unparalleled 75 weeks on the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart, 15 of those weeks at number one. In 2011, VH1 ranked Blige as the 80th greatest artist of all time. Moreover, she was ranked 100th on the list of "100 Greatest Singers of All Time" by Rolling Stone magazine. In 2012, VH1 ranked Blige ninth among "The 100 Greatest Woman in Music" listing.

SOLUTION: b

PROBLEM: Question: What state was the president who appointed Nelson to the President's Export Council from? Passage:In 1967 at the start of the governorship of Ronald Reagan one of Reagan's first actions was to fire Nelson from her state government post at the Consumer Counsel. Nelson said that this was because she was disliked by Reagan's supporters, including the California Grocer's Association and the California Manufacturers' Association. After this she became elected president of the Consumer Federation of California. She served also on the board of Consumers Union, and would be re-elected for a total of five three-year terms on that board. From 1969-1979 served as a professor of economics at the University of Wisconsin. During this time she also served as a public governor for the American Stock Exchange. In 1968 after 15 years of work her lobbying had contributed to the passing of the Truth in Lending Act. She served two terms as president of the Consumer Federation of America from 1972-1982. She was the consumer consultant to the Office of Technology Assessment and the National Academy of Science. She petitioned the National Academy of Science to recognize the research showing saccharin as a cancer-causing agent and fluorocarbons as causing ozone depletion. In 1978 President Jimmy Carter appointed Nelson to the President's Export Council. Also in 1978 the American Council on Consumer Interests recognized her as a "Distinguished Fellow". In 1979 after the 1977 death of her husband Nelson returned to Mill Valley, California. There she was appointed to the Consumer Advisory Council of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors, the consumer advisory panel for Pacific Bell, and the San Francisco chapter of Consumer Action. At this time she said that her worst fear for the future was "That consumers will become like the feudal people of old times. That they will be so tied to a VISA card that they are not whole people. That they will be easily manipulated by the television and sellers, that they will do what is suggested to them instead of what comes from their own spirit."

SOLUTION: b

PROBLEM: Question: Was the Rhine settlement that the trunk line connected with other places more than a hundred years old at the time of said construction? Passage:Historically, the preconditions for a change of the landscape started with the construction of the Cologne-Minden trunk line in the 1840s that connected the river Rhine settlements like Cologne with harbours and trade at the river Weser and so with the Lippe town Hamm, too. Moreover, this railway supported the coal and steel industry development in the northern Ruhr region. The hard coal mining that started in the middle of the 19th century in the Emscher catchment area developed in the following decades direction north and so to the Lippe catchment area, too, where from the 1860s on first problems from mining subsidence and drainage of polluted water appeared. The historical city of Hamm and the towns Lunen, Haltern and Dorsten were small settlements located at the Lippe but expanded with the establishing of hard coal mines starting around 1900. The industrialization caused huge water quality problems in the Lippe tributaries and the Lippe itself; therefore first in 1913 the Sesekegenossenschaft and later in 1926 the Lippeverband as water boards ("Wasserwirtschaftsverbande") were established. Since 1914 the Datteln-Hamm Canal and 1930 the Wesel-Datteln Canal are located in parallel to the Lippe which is not navigable for mass transportation. The canals receive Lippe water or feed the Lippe (to improve dry weather flow) from an exchange facility in Hamm, operated by the Wasserverband Westdeutsche Kanale.

SOLUTION:
b