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: Which ruler died first? Passage 1:Finn's first commission was as project manager for the Rice Hotel, under contract with the firm of Mauran, Russell & Crowell. The owner of the new hotel, Jesse H. Jones, soon after established a collaboration with Finn which would change the face of Downtown Houston. Finn designed two buildings for Jones across the way from the Rice Hotel: the Foster Building, aka the Houston Chronicle Building, in 1914, and the Rusk Building in 1916. The corner of Texas and Travis was dominated by buildings built by Finn and Jones. In 1926, Finn designed a new seventeen-story wing for the Rice Hotel on behalf of Jones. Finn did architectural work for other commercial clients in the 1920s. He completed State National Bank Building (NHRP-listed) at 412 Main Street in 1923. Jones contracted with Finn to build the Lamar Hotel, where Jones established his new residence. The Jones apartment consumed the whole top floor, though he hired John F. Staub for the interior design. Jones also promised a venue for the 1928 Democratic National Convention without consulting the city of Houston, pledging $200,000 of his own capital. He engaged Finn and Kenneth Franzheim to design and erect the Sam Houston Hall in just four months. The Sam Houston Hall, ostensibly built to be a temporary structure, was larger than Madison Square Garden, and equipped with heavy-duty fans and apertures between the roof and the walls to facilitate air flow. Jones contracted with Finn on another project in downtown Houston, this time with in collaboration with Franzheim and J.E.R. Carpenter, to finish the 37-story, art deco Gulf Building in 1929 at that time the tallest building in Texas.
 Passage 2:In the spring of 1902, Bulgaria, an Ottoman vassal state which was interested in acquiring Macedonia, signed a military convention with Russia. Late in the fall, Russia, supported by the United Kingdom and France, proposed to the Ottomans political reforms for the Macedonian vilayets. On 8 December, the Ottoman sultan, Abdul Hamid II, signed a decree implementing most of the reforms. In February 1903, the new Russian foreign minister, Vladimir Lamsdorf, visited Vienna and signed the so-called "Vienna Program" on Macedonian reforms. The program was substantially the same as the Ottoman decree of December. The immediate provocation of a new agreement at Mürzsteg was the Ilinden–Preobrazhenie Uprising that broke out on 2 August. With its quick suppression, the Vienna Program lay dead. In September Tsar Nicholas II of Russia visited the Emperor Francis Joseph of Austria-Hungary at the latter's castle in Mürzsteg, Austria. The two rulers put their signatures to a new memorandum, substantially identical to the Vienna Program, which called for the appointment of one Russian and one Austro-Hungarian civil agent to oversee the reform of the administration, judiciary and local gendarmerie in the Macedonian vilayets. In all these institutions Christians were to take part. After Abdul Hamid accepted the proposal in November, Russia appointed one N. Demerik as its agent, and Austria chose one G. Müller. They began their work under Hüseyin Hilmi Pasha, the Inspector-General of Macedonia, in early 1904. Under the Mürzsteg program, each Great Power appointed an advisory official to the Ottoman official in charge of reforming the gendarmerie in each province. Austria-Hungary appointed an advisor to the sanjak of Üsküp, Russia to the sanjak of Thessaloniki, France to the sanjak of Siroz and Britain to the sanjak of Drama.
 Passage 3:Crimea: The Last Crusade is a panoramic history of the Crimean War of 1853–56. Drawing extensively from Russian, French and Ottoman as well as British archives, it combines military, diplomatic, political and cultural history, examining how the war left a lasting mark on the national consciousness of Britain, France, Russia and Turkey. Figes sets the war in the context of the Eastern Question, the diplomatic and political problems caused by the decay of the Ottoman Empire. In particular, he emphasises the importance of the religious struggle between Russia as the defender of the Orthodox and France as the protector of the Catholics in the Ottoman Empire. He frames the war within a longer history of religious conflict between Christians and Muslims in the Balkans, southern Russia and the Caucasus that continues to this day. Figes stresses the religious motive of the Tsar Nicholas I in his bold decision to go to war, arguing that Nicholas was swayed by the ideas of the Pan-Slavs to invade Moldavia and Wallachia and encourage Slav revolts against the Ottomans, despite his earlier adherence to the Legitimist principles of the Holy Alliance. He also shows how France and Britain were drawn into the war by popular ideas of Russophobia that swept across Europe in the wake of the Revolutions of 1830 and 1848. As one reviewer wrote, Figes shows "how the cold war of the Soviet era froze over fundamental fault lines that had opened up in the 19th century."


SOLUTION: 2

PROBLEM: Question: Who was the commander of the Army of Tennessee during the siege of Vicksburg? Passage 1:Ryan supports eliminating the capital gains tax, the corporate income tax, the estate tax, and the Alternative Minimum Tax. In 1999, Ryan supported the Gramm–Leach–Bliley Act, which repealed some financial regulation of banks from the Glass–Steagall Act of 1933. During the economic recovery from the Great Recession of the late 2000s, Ryan supported the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP), which authorized the Treasury to purchase toxic assets from banks and other financial institutions, and the auto industry bailout; Ryan opposed the Credit CARD Act of 2009, which expanded consumer protections regarding credit card plans, and the Dodd–Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, which strengthened financial regulation.
 Passage 2:He first appears in Constantinople in 1401, qualified as an oikeios of the emperor. In 1417 he was possibly sent on a diplomatic mission to the Venetians in the Morea. In 1422 and again in 1429 he was sent by Emperor John VIII Palaiologos as an envoy to the Ottoman Sultan Murad II. At the time he had the relatively lowly rank of protovestiarites, but was quickly promoted to protostrator and then to the senior rank of megas stratopedarches, which he held already during his mission in 1430 to Pope Martin V. During his return from the mission to the Pope, on orders from the Emperor, he raised Thomas Palaiologos to the rank of Despot in the Morea. He led two more missions abroad, one in 1433 to Pope Eugene IV, and one in 1438 to Venice.
 Passage 3:At the beginning of the Civil War, he became a lieutenant and adjutant of the 13th Iowa Infantry Regiment. He fought at the battle of Shiloh and Corinth. He served as assistant adjutant general in the XVII Corps during the siege of Vicksburg and assistant adjutant general to the Army of the Tennessee during the Atlanta Campaign. He was made a brevet brigadier general for service in the Atlanta Campaign and was assigned to an infantry brigade in the XV Corps during the Carolinas Campaign, but was only lightly engaged in fighting. He rose to the full rank of brigadier general of volunteers (1865), and was made a brevet major general at the close of the same year for gallant and meritorious services during the war.


SOLUTION: 3

PROBLEM: Question: Who had more wins the year Robertson dropped the belt back to Lewis, Jerry Valiant or Steve Regal? Passage 1:When the American Civil War began, Weitzel was assigned to construct defenses, including in Cincinnati and Washington, as well as for George McClellan in the Army of the Potomac in late 1861. He was then attached to the staff of Major General Benjamin F. Butler as chief engineer of the Department of the Gulf. When Union troops captured New Orleans, Weitzel became assistant military commander and acting mayor. He was promoted to brigadier general in August 1862 and two months later routed a large force of the enemy at Labadieville, Louisiana, which earned him a brevet promotion to major in the Regular Army. Weitzel commanded a brigade in the XIX Corps advancing in Major General Nathaniel P. Banks's operations in western Louisiana during April and May 1863, which led to the siege of Port Hudson. Weitzel was later brevetted lieutenant colonel in the Regular Army, "for gallant and meritorious services at the siege of Port Hudson," which fell on July 9, 1863, days after Vicksburg, Mississippi, about 120 miles upriver, the last Confederate stronghold on the great Mississippi, had fallen. Together those successful sieges and the continuing blockage of Southern ports completed the Anaconda Plan.
 Passage 2:Robertson moved to Central States Wrestling, where he won the majority of his titles. On October 22, 1981, he won the NWA Central States Television Championship with a victory over Gene Lewis. He lost the belt to Oliver Humperdink later that year but soon regained it in a rematch. On February 18, 1982, however, he dropped the belt back to Lewis. This allowed Robertson to focus on the NWA Central States Tag Team Championship, which he won a total of five times. His first reign came in October 1981 when he teamed with Rufus R. Jones to defeat Buzz Tyler and James J. Dillon. His next reign came in March 1982 when he teamed with Steve Regal to win the belts from Roger Kirby and Jerry Valiant. The title changed hands twice more that month, as Kirby and Valiant quickly regained the title only to drop it back to Robertson and Regal. Two months later, Kirby and Valiant won the belts back again. Robertson found a new partner, however, and won the championship by teaming with Hercules Hernandez in August. The reign lasted less than a month, but Robertson and Hernandez held the belts one final time after another victory in September 1982. The following year, Robertson's main success came as a singles wrestler. On February 10, 1983, he won the NWA Central States Heavyweight Championship with a victory over Manny Fernandez. He lost the belt to Bob Brown two months later but regained it in a rematch the following week. Robertson's final title reign ended when he dropped the title to Race on June 2, 1983.
 Passage 3:Keith Cerny is an American opera director and businessman. From 2004-2007 he was Executive Director and CFO of the San Francisco Opera and from 2010-2018 he was General Director of the Dallas Opera. In 2018 he was appointed General Director of the Calgary Opera. He is also the former CEO of Sheet Music Plus (2008-2010), the world's largest interest-based sheet-music company. He is a graduate of the University of California, Berkeley (B.A. in Music and B.S. in Physics), the Harvard Business School (M.B.A.), and the Open University in the United Kingdom (Ph.D. in Economic Development Studies/Econometrics). He also studied conducting, voice, and accompanying at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London and studied opera-accompanying in English National Opera's répétiteur training course. He also worked for McKinsey & Company for six years where he was a Senior Engagement Manager, and seven years with the consulting firm Accenture. He is also an Executive Board Member for Opera America.


SOLUTION:
2