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: On to the Twentieth Century: The British extended their control over the peninsula by putting together the whole panoply of colonial administration — civil service, public works, judiciary force, police force, post office, education, and land regulation — with teams of British administrators, teachers, engineers, and doctors to go with it. At the same time, the tin industry, dominated by Chinese using labor-intensive methods in the 19th century, passed increasingly into Western hands, who employed the modern technology of gravel pumps and mining dredges. Petroleum had been found in northern Borneo, at Miri, and in Brunei, and the Anglo-Dutch Shell company used Singapore as its regional depot for its oil supplies and exports. But the major breakthrough for the Malay economy was the triumph of rubber, when Singapore's new garden director, Henry Ridle ("Rubber Ridley" to his friends, "Mad Ridley" to all doubting Thomases) had developed new planting and tapping methods and painstakingly spread his faith in rubber around the peninsula. World demand increased with the growth of the motor-car and electrical industries, and sky-rocketed during World War I. By 1920, Malaya was producing 53 percent of the world's rubber, which had overtaken tin as its main source of income. The Malay ruling class again took a back seat. Together with effective control of the rubber and tin industries, the British now firmly held the reins of government. The sultans were left in charge of local and religious affairs, content with their prestige, prosperity, and security. The census of 1931 served as an alarm signal for the Malay national consciousness. Bolstered by a new influx of immigrants to meet the rubber and tin booms of the 1920s, non-Malays now slightly outnumbered the indigenous population. The Great Depression of 1929 stepped up ethnic competition in the shrinking job market, and nationalism developed to safeguard Malay interests against the Chinese and Indians rather than the British imperial authority. Though hampered by the peninsula's division into the States and the Straits Settlements, relatively conservative Muslim intellectuals and community leaders came together at the Pan-Malayan Malay Congress in Kuala Lumpur in 1939. In Singapore the following year, they were joined by representatives from Sarawak and Brunei. Teachers and journalists urged the revival of the common Malay-Indonesian consciousness, split by the Anglo-Dutch dismemberment of the region in the 19th century. This spirit became a factor in the gathering clouds of war. <sep>What caused the Malay ruling class to take a back seat?<sep>Auto and electrical industry demand for rubber, which dramatically increased during World War I

SOLUTION: Yes

PROBLEM: Also on Feb. 12, a week before the ice dancing finals, Tokhtakhounov told Anissina's mother in a telephone call that the Russian federation official "had called me from America" to assure that "we are going to make" Anissina "an Olympic champion." He told her that the Russian skating federation official "will help -- he has two or three judges." On or about March 7, in a conversation between Tokhtakhounov and Anissina, she said she would have won the event without his assistance because the Russian judge did not vote for her and her partner. She also apologized for not calling to thank him earlier, but that Gailhaguet had forbidden her. She told Tokhtakhounov that she knew the FBI had interviewed Gailhaguet because of information that Tokhtakhounov "was involved with the results" of the ice dancing. He assured her that it was nonsense, but that Gailhaguet "knows my name very well -- he tried to help me, and later he made stuff up to scare you so you would not connect me to him even more." The conversations seem to indicate a familiarity between Tokhtakhounov and Anissina. Tass, the official Russian news agency, reported that Anissina attended a ceremony in 1999 at a Paris hotel honoring Tokhtakhounov for his philanthropy. That Russian organized crime may have infiltrated international sport at the Olympics stunned Phyllis Howard, president of the U.S. Figure Skating Association. "This is a criminal act and it certainly puts things in a different league," Howard said. Lloyd Ward, chief executive officer of the U.S. Olympic Committee, said in a statement, "Competitors from all nations must be assured that they compete on a level playing field." <sep>Who is going to help making Anissina "an Olympic champion"?<sep>Tokhtakhounov

SOLUTION: Yes

PROBLEM: Albrecht Durer (/'dU@r@r, 'djU@r@r/; German: ['albRect 'dy:Ra]; 21 May 1471 - 6 April 1528) was a painter, printmaker and theorist of the German Renaissance. Born in Nuremberg, Durer established his reputation and influence across Europe when he was still in his twenties, due to his high-quality woodcut prints. He was in communication with the major Italian artists of his time, including Raphael, Giovanni Bellini and Leonardo da Vinci, and from 1512 he was patronized by emperor Maximilian I. His vast body of work includes engravings, his preferred technique in his later prints, altarpieces, portraits and self-portraits, watercolours and books. The woodcuts, such as the Apocalypse series (1498), retain a more Gothic flavour than the rest of his work. His well-known engravings include the Knight, Death, and the Devil (1513), Saint Jerome in his Study (1514) and Melencolia I (1514), which has been the subject of extensive analysis and interpretation. His watercolours also mark him as one of the first European landscape artists, while his ambitious woodcuts revolutionized the potential of that medium. Durer's introduction of classical motifs into Northern art, through his knowledge of Italian artists and German humanists, has secured his reputation as one of the most important figures of the Northern Renaissance. This is reinforced by his theoretical treatises, which involve principles of mathematics, perspective and ideal proportions. <sep>What three specific types of work earned Durer a good reputation?<sep>Woodcuts

SOLUTION:
Yes

