Given this markup, the plain text turns red but the link keeps the browser's default link color:
<div style='color: red;'>Some text and <a href='/help'>a link</a></div>
Why does the link not turn red?
Values set in a style attribute are not inherited by descendants; only declarations from stylesheets are.
The browser's default stylesheet contains a declaration that targets the <a> element itself, and a value produced by a declaration on an element always takes precedence over a value it would otherwise inherit.✓Richtige Antwort
The user-agent stylesheet has higher specificity than a style attribute, so its rule for <a> wins the comparison.
color is not an inherited property; every element takes it from the user-agent stylesheet unless you set it on that element explicitly.
Erklärung
Inheritance is a fallback, not a competitor. It supplies a value only when the cascade produced no declared value for that property on that element. The user-agent stylesheet does declare a color for <a>, so the cascade produces a value there and the inherited red is never reached — no specificity comparison between the two takes place, because they are not in the same competition. The style attribute does inherit normally, which is why the surrounding text is red, and color is an inherited property, which is why the first and last options are false as stated.