tricky: past perfect vs simple pas

tacosychelas wrote:The reports from the Department of Commerce indicated that the economy had grown at an annual rate much higher than most economists had predicted.
A) had predicted.
B) predicted

We use the past perfect when we need to put an event two steps into the past.

In this sentence, the reports "indicated", which is already the past tense. So, we need to decide if the economists made their predictions before the reports, during the reports or after the reports.

The reports were written after the economists made their predictions, so the predictions need to be in a tense earlier than the simple past: choose (a) had predicted.

THANKS!
Seriously

I will choose A, too.