BillyZ wrote:
The following appeared in a newspaper editorial:
It is important that penalties for drug dealing on school grounds remain extremely severe. If the penalties became less severe, more of our students would become addicted to drugs.
The argument assumes which of the following:
(A) Drug dealers are currently being deterred from drug dealing on school ground s due to the penalties at issue.
(B) Drug use is harmful to the academic careers of students.
(C) Drug dealing on school grounds is punished more harshly than drug dealing off school grounds.
(D) Those who deal drugs on school grounds are not students at those schools.
(E) There is a significant chance that some of those addicted to drugs will ultimately die from drug-related causes.
OFFICIAL EXPLANATION
(A) Drug dealers are already being deterred from drug dealing on school grounds due to the penalties currently in place:On Assumption questions, your task is to find the answer that reflects something the author assumes to be true in order to draw his or her conclusion. Here are some assumptions in the argument:
The students will take the drugs.
The students have money to buy the drugs.
At least some students who take the drugs will become addicted.
Drug dealers are aware of and deterred by different levels of penalties in different situations.
Answer (A) is a very close match with the last idea. The argument certainly does assume that drug dealers care about what the penalties are—it assumes that the current high penalties are keeping drug dealers away and that lower penalties would increase their activities.
Answers (B) and (E) are reasonable to believe, but the argument says nothing about academic work or death.
Answer (C) has a similar problem. The argument addresses only drug dealing on school grounds; comparing this situation to drug dealing off of school grounds is irrelevant.
The argument does not make any assumptions about who is dealing the drugs, so answer (D) is out of scope.
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