A question about two texts tests how one writer or researcher would answer another’s claim. Read the question to find who answers whom, then sum up each text’s claim and reason. Ask which parts the responding text accepts and which it challenges. Name the writer’s view of the claim, then check the reasons for that view and how strong the response is. A choice can challenge the claim for a reason the text never gives.
Hints
- Hint 1
The scholars in Text 2 are answering Deshpande. Find her prediction for firms at the end of Text 1.
- Hint 2
Read the study’s findings for how the firms changed after the flop. How does that change compare with Deshpande’s prediction?
- Hint 3
Use the interviews to connect the flop to the founders’ choices. What do their reasons tell you about Deshpande’s view of failure?
Step-by-step
Compare the claim with the study
Step 1Find who answers and what’s claimed
The question has the scholars in Text 2 answer Deshpande’s claim. What does she predict? She says remembered losses discourage later risks, then extends that idea to firms with several failed products, which will predictably pursue conservative strategies thereafter.
- Step 2
Read the result and the reasons
How did the firms respond, and why? Most increased research-and-development spending and adopted bolder product designs, and founders described failure as a license to experiment more radically. They felt they had little left to lose, so the flop helped push them toward greater risk. Failure still shaped their choices, but those choices went against Deshpande’s prediction.
- Step 3
Name the view and test it
The scholars would accept the claim only in part. A response that would reject Deshpande’s premise denies that failure shaped the founders’ choices, which the interviews show. The response calling the results consistent with Deshpande’s claim also fails, because bolder product designs go against her prediction of conservative strategies.
- Step 4
Check how much the study proves
Does limited to repeated failures follow from the study? Its sample is 42 technology start-ups, and the result holds for a substantial majority of these companies, so it doesn’t prove how organizations generally respond to one failure. The scholars also don’t compare firms with one failure against firms with several, so their study doesn’t test whether repetition changes the response. The choice disputing necessarily discourages risk-taking makes a narrower claim: failure can affect choices without always pushing them toward caution. Choice D.