GRE Text Completion - choosing between Instigated and Prompted [closed]

Solution 1:

Instigate is a more loaded term that tends to take an action as its object. Here is its definition according to Merriam-Webster:

: to goad or urge forward : PROVOKE

Goading has a connotation of being led by someone else, irrespective of what the people affected think. (A rider's spur would be a goad.) I might instigate something, which means I urge that situation forward. In contrast prompt allows for more persuasion, for moving someone to do an action:

1 : to move to action : INCITE

The difference is visible in what tends to follow each verb in corpus results. I used a Corpus of Contemporary American English comparison search for the verb forms of instigate and prompt, focusing on the two words following the verb. As shown below, instigate is often followed by an action (reform, conflicts, attacks, violence); prompt is often followed by the entity being moved to act (you, us, them, students, people, him).

So while one might instigate a reform, in your version a discovery prompted the UK Department of Health to do something.