In each question below is given a statement followed by three assumptions…

In Statement-Assumption reasoning, an assumption is something the speaker silently takes for granted while making a statement - it is not stated in the passage itself, but the statement's advice or claim would not make sense unless the assumption were true. To test an assumption, ask: does the statement's course of action or claim implicitly presuppose this to be true? If yes, the assumption is implicit; if the statement's validity does not depend on it, the assumption does not follow.

Apply this test to the consultant's opinion, which recommends two specific actions - reducing staff and borrowing funds - as the route to commercial viability.

• Assumption I (financial institutions lend money for such proposals): The consultant explicitly recommends borrowing from financial institutions as part of the solution. This advice only makes sense if the consultant is taking for granted that such institutions do lend money for this kind of proposal - otherwise the suggestion would be pointless. So I is implicit.

• Assumption II (the product has a potential market): 'Commercial viability' means the company can sustainably sell its output at a profit. Recommending internal cost-cutting measures (staff reduction, borrowed funds) as a path to viability presupposes that the underlying product itself is sellable - that a market for it exists. Without that presupposition, no combination of cost-cutting could make the company viable, so the consultant is silently assuming a potential market exists. So II is implicit.

• Assumption III (the employees are inefficient): The consultant's suggestion is to prune staff strength to cut costs - a size-and-cost argument, not a productivity argument. Trimming headcount for cost reasons does not require assuming the existing staff are inefficient or underperforming; a company can be overstaffed for a lean workload without any individual employee being inefficient. So III does not follow from the statement.

Checking each answer choice against this analysis:

• 'None is implicit' fails because at least I and II are genuinely required for the consultant's suggestion to make sense - it is not the case that no assumption holds.

• 'All are implicit' fails because assumption III does not follow - pruning staff for cost reasons does not require assuming they are inefficient.

• 'Only I and II are implicit' matches the analysis: both I and II are necessarily presupposed by the consultant's recommendation, while III is not.

• 'Only II and III are implicit' fails because it drops the correctly-implicit I (that financial institutions lend for such proposals) while wrongly including III.