A question about how one author would respond tests whether you can connect two texts’ claims. Identify who answers whom, and focus on the underlined claim rather than the whole argument. Put that claim and the responding author’s evidence into a few words. Ask whether that author rejects the claim, accepts only part of it, or adds to it. Then check the reason, because the response must fit that author’s evidence, not only whether they agree.
Hints
- Hint 1
Look for what Grant says the pilot proved in the underlined sentence. That’s the claim Lin and Kapoor are being asked to address.
- Hint 2
Summarize the study’s results about business activity. What do the registration comparison and the rates of self-employment and startup formation show?
- Hint 3
Do those findings support the underlined claim, limit it to some cases, or challenge its basis?
Step-by-step
Judge the claim by the study’s findings
Step 1Identify the claim and who responds
Grant’s underlined sentence says guaranteed payments encouraged thousands of recipients to launch new businesses, and she uses that claim to argue that UBI drives entrepreneurship. Who answers that claim? The question names Lin and Kapoor, so their findings guide the response, not Grant’s broader prediction about the United States. Let’s test the claimed business growth against their study of the same pilot.
- Step 2
Read the business results
What did their study find when it checked business activity? Registrations showed no statistically significant uptick among recipients compared with the control group, which means the data didn’t reliably show higher registration rates for recipients. Rates of self-employment and startup formation also remained “effectively unchanged.” Neither finding shows the business growth that Grant describes.
- Step 3
Name the stance toward that claim
Do happier recipients make Grant’s business claim partly true? Text 2 reports greater life satisfaction and reduced stress, but those findings concern how people felt, not whether they launched businesses. Lin and Kapoor would reject the entrepreneurship claim as unsupported, rather than accept it as true in some cases. Accepting other benefits of UBI doesn’t mean accepting the specific claim that the payments increased startup formation.
- Step 4
Match the reason and strength
Test the strength of did not measurably increase entrepreneurship. The word measurably keeps the claim tied to this study’s results, without saying UBI could never encourage new businesses. Mentioning improved well-being also matches the reported gains in life satisfaction and reduced stress. Choice D.