Political scientist: Some analysts point to the government's acceptance of the recent protest rally as proof that the...

Mehran on September 4, 2018

Hi @ddupray, thanks for your post.

As always, start with an analysis of the stimulus. This one presents an argument; the conclusion is "the government supports no such thing [in other words: the government does not support freedom of popular expression]." What is the support provided for this claim? (1) That "supporting freedom of popular expression means accepting the expression of ideas that the government opposes as well as the expression of ideas that the government supports," and (2) that "the message of the protest rally [that the government accepted] was one that the government entirely supports."

This is not a solid argument, because it fails to explicitly establish that the government only accepted the protest rally because it supported the rally's message.

The question stem presents Strengthen with Necessary Premise question ("an assumption that is required"). The correct answer is (C): "the government would not have accepted a protest rally whose message it opposed." Remember that on Strengthen with Necessary Premise questions, if you negate the correct answer, the argument in the stimulus falls apart. Negate (C): "the government may have accepted a protest rally even if it opposed its message." If this is true, then the argument in the stimulus falls apart. Thus, you know that this is the correct answer.

Hope this helps. Please let us know if you have any additional or more specific questions.