Article: China also began suffering from mounting overpopulation during this period. Population growth was stagnant for the first half of the 17th century due to civil wars and epidemics, but prosperity and internal stability gradually reversed this trend. The introduction of new crops from the Americas such as the potato and peanut allowed an improved food supply as well, so that the total population of China during the 18th century ballooned from 100 million to 300 million people. Soon all available farmland was used up, forcing peasants to work ever-smaller and more intensely worked plots. The Qianlong Emperor once bemoaned the country's situation by remarking "The population continues to grow, but the land does not." The only remaining part of the empire that had arable farmland was Manchuria, where the provinces of Jilin and Heilongjiang had been walled off as a Manchu homeland. The emperor decreed for the first time that Han Chinese civilians were forbidden to settle. Mongols were forbidden by the Qing from crossing the borders of their banners, even into other Mongol Banners and from crossing into neidi (the Han Chinese 18 provinces) and were given serious punishments if they did in order to keep the Mongols divided against each other to benefit the Qing.

Question: How many people lived in China at the start of the 18th century?
Ans: 100 million


Article: The preludes, many of which are very brief (some consisting of simple statements and developments of a single theme or figure), were described by Schumann as "the beginnings of studies". Inspired by J.S. Bach's The Well-Tempered Clavier, Chopin's preludes move up the circle of fifths (rather than Bach's chromatic scale sequence) to create a prelude in each major and minor tonality. The preludes were perhaps not intended to be played as a group, and may even have been used by him and later pianists as generic preludes to others of his pieces, or even to music by other composers, as Kenneth Hamilton suggests: he has noted a recording by Ferruccio Busoni of 1922, in which the Prelude Op. 28 No. 7 is followed by the Étude Op. 10 No. 5.

Question: Kenneth Hamilton suggests that the preludes may not have been meant as a group but rather as what?
Ans: generic preludes to others of his pieces


Article: The junior U.S. Senator from Massachusetts, Paul Tsongas, announced in 1984 that he would be stepping down for health reasons. Kerry ran, and as in his 1982 race for Lieutenant Governor, he did not receive the endorsement of the party regulars at the state Democratic convention. Congressman James Shannon, a favorite of House Speaker Tip O'Neill, was the early favorite to win the nomination, and he "won broad establishment support and led in early polling." Again as in 1982, however, Kerry prevailed in a close primary.

Question: What was James Shannon's job?
Ans: Congressman


Article: By the 20th century, the saloon, or lounge bar, had become a middle-class room[citation needed]—carpets on the floor, cushions on the seats, and a penny or two on the prices,[citation needed] while the public bar, or tap room, remained working class with bare boards, sometimes with sawdust to absorb the spitting and spillages (known as "spit and sawdust"), hard bench seats, and cheap beer[citation needed]. This bar was known as the four-ale bar from the days when the cheapest beer served there cost 4 pence (4d) a quart.[citation needed]

Question: What socioeconomic class was associated with the lounge bar in the 20th century?
Ans:
middle-class