An inference question about an unstated assumption tests whether you can find the belief behind a writer's reasoning. Read the words introducing the blank, then find the claim you need to explain. Ask how the stated cause could produce the stated result, and predict the missing link. Keep the prediction small, using only the clues that make that link necessary. Wrong choices often sound reasonable but add ideas that the writer's reasoning doesn't need.
Hints
- Hint 1
Find the review's reason for weaker innovation. What does the phrase beginning with by say grants change for companies?
- Hint 2
Trace the review's reasoning. What unstated belief connects the cause the review gives to its effect?
Step-by-step
Find the unstated link
Step 1Find the claim to explain
The review says direct grants can curb long-term innovation by shielding companies from market pressures. What does the blank ask us to add? The words Implicit in the review is the assumption that call for an unstated belief about why this happens, so we're explaining why shielding firms would reduce innovation.
- Step 2
Predict the needed belief
What has to be true for shielding companies from market pressures to weaken innovation? Imagine firms made as many major improvements without market pressure as they did with it. Then shielding wouldn't explain a drop in innovation. Our small prediction is that market pressure gives firms an important reason to improve, and taking that pressure away makes innovation less likely.
- Step 3
Reject added claims
Which claims add things the review doesn't say? The compete on price claim makes price the main cause, but the phrase market pressures doesn't single out one pressure. Being dependent on public funding adds a problem the review never mentions. And funding continues only gives a specific rule for later support. The review doesn't define its performance-based milestones or say what decides later funding.
- Step 4
Test the assumption's meaning
Unlikely means the chances are low, not that something is impossible. In the choice about market-driven incentives, what becomes unlikely when those incentives are absent? Significant innovation does, so removing market pressure can weaken innovation, which explains how shielding firms can curb long-term innovation. Choice D.