PrepTest 124, Section 4, Question 19

Working the answers

• A

  Commercial involvement doesn't establish that university researchers changed employers. Neither writer describes a large movement of researchers into biotechnology companies.

• B

  Neither identifies an invalid patent. A worries about commercialization, and B describes blurred patent boundaries. Those points do not establish that any company has obtained an invalid patent.

• C

  B discusses the blurred discovery–invention boundary, but A doesn't. Whatever support we might find in B, this cannot be a conclusion supported by both.

• D
  Correct

  A describes a longstanding sharing tradition and worries that commercialization threatens research's role as a public good. B is more explicit: scientific knowledge was available to “society as a whole,” and individuals were not entitled to restrict access. Scientists working in industry belong to that wider public too. Together, these accounts support the claim that industrial scientists could freely access basic university research before the described restrictions.

• E

  B discusses government funding, but doesn't say private industry's goals traditionally motivated that research. A emphasizes researchers' insulation from market pressures. Funding universities and directing their research toward private industry are different claims.