Given the Question and Answer pair, detect whether the answer is acceptable or not. Denote acceptable answer as "yes", otherwise denote as "no". An acceptable answer is consistent with the context in question, detailed, long, and uses general knowledge of English. Answers that are not definite and suggest a variety of options are not acceptable answers.

[EX Q]: Question: Persistence and perseverance seem to have very similar definitions. Googling shows persistence: Firm or obstinate continuance in a course of action in spite of difficulty or opposition. perseverance: Steadfastness in doing something despite difficulty or delay in achieving success. What is the difference between them?
Answer: "Persistence" is used in the sense of "stubborn" (obstinate). There could be a slight negative connotation. For example: The telemarketers persistently called us. We don't say they "perseverantly" called us. "Persistent" is used when there continuing action, and the purpose is either bad, or neutral, and sometimes(rarely) good. "Perseverance", is used when the purpose is good. That is, you're doing something to help someone, or to achieve a desirable goal, such as climbing Mt. Everest. Depending on how you feel on something, you could use "perseverance"/"Persistence". For example, the telemarketer calling you, could annoy you, and you could call him "obstinately persistent". But to the marketer, you might be to him, a tough customer, and he might seem to himself "bravely perseverant in trying to persuade this tough customer." As you can see, it gives a different "feel" about the thing described.
[EX A]: yes

[EX Q]: Question: Is there a specific rule, or set of rules, that can be followed to know when to use each word? I have noticed that not is usually used with a verb, but I think that there sometimes are exceptions although I can't think of one now.
Answer: Not is a negative adverb; no is a negative quantifier; non- is a negative prefix. Since negation is so important, thousands of idioms use each of these, among other negatives. Consequently there are lots of exceptions to the general rules below. Non- is not a word, but a part of another word, usually a descriptive adjective: non-lethal, non-professional, non-native, non-technical, non-playing (The hyphen is optional.) Each of these mean "anything but ..." -- anything that doesn't kill you is non-lethal, anything that's not technical is non-technical, etc. This meaning contrasts with un- and in-, which refer to opposites instead of complements. No is half of the answer pair Yes/No, shading off vocally into Nah, Nuh-uh, and Uh-uh. But it can also quantify and negate any noun phrase: Some blade of grass ~ No blade of grass; One who saw it ~ No one who saw it. Not is the general negator for verb phrases, including predicate adjectives and nouns. In a verb phrase, not occurs immediately after the first auxiliary verb. If there is no auxiliary verb in the verb phrase, Do-Support supplies a form of do. Not is contracted whenever possible, with auxiliaries or subjects (especially pronouns): He's not interested ~ He isn't interested; She doesn't like it, but not *She not likes it. Any of these negatives (and many others) can negate a sentence, changing its truth value. It's easy to switch between them, too; the sentences below all mean the same thing: They allowed no phone calls. They didn't allow phone calls. No one allowed phone calls. Phone calls weren't allowed.
[EX A]: yes

[EX Q]: Question: Possible Duplicate: Why don't we use the indefinite article with 'software'? In France I have always been told that saying "a software" is not correct English (as a nominal compound), and that "a piece of software" or "a software program/package/product/system" must be used instead. Recently I have doubts... is there any case where it is actually correct? Examples found on the Internet: SalsaJ, a software for data analysis at school So if you sold a software which required your customer to pay a monthly fee, [...]
Answer: No, this is always wrong. Both examples you provide contain incorrect usage of the term "software." (A mistake is still a mistake even if many people make it.) However, there might be special cases where you'd see the article preceding software. For example: A software solution would be better for the problem than a hardware one. The indefinite article "a" modifies "solution", not "software", in this case in spite of preceding "software" in this case.
[EX A]:
yes