I’m happy to help. We are looking for an answer that is an assumption that the argument makes. In order to find the assumption, we need to understand the logical flow of the argument.
The argument starts with a conclusion: A university should not be entitled to patent inventions of faculty. And then we get a logical chain:
Premise 1: Universities, guarantors of intellectual freedom, should encourage free flow of ideas.
Premise 2: Universities that retain the right to patent faculty ideas has a motive to suppress information.
Premise 3: Suppressing information concerning discoveries is incompatible with the free flow of ideas.
Did you notice the gap between premise 2 and premise 3? Premise 2 discusses the MOTIVATION of universities that retain the right to patent, whereas premise 3 discusses the incompatibility of ACTUALLY SUPPRESSING the information. That is a big difference!
And that is why answer D is correct. It connects the gap between those two premises, namely that the motive to suppress actually translates into acting on that motive.
B is incorrect because it doesn’t fill that gap. Instead, it just tells us that most inventions would be profitable if patented. That speaks to the motivation of the university to patent, but isn’t the current assumption that the argument is already making. Answer B might be correct if our question stem was something like what would strengthen the argument (assuming the logical gap was filled!)
I hope that helps. Please let us know if you have further questions.
