The following appeared in a newspaper editorial: It is important that

IMO

The passage doesn't talk about drug dealing off school grounds. So there is no comparison here for the author to be assuming such thing. Dealing drugs off school ground is OFS

Author concludes that the severe penalties for drug dealing on school ground act as deterrent for increasing drug consumption by students. The penalties are either deterring the supply of drugs from dealers to students or are preventing students to consume drugs after they have acquire them or both. Any assumption in one of these directions will be a correct answer.

Answer: A

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.

Hi I tried negating A but couldn't convince myself why the conclusion will not hold after negation.

(A) Drug dealers are NOT currently being deterred from drug dealing on school ground s due to the penalties at issue.

If the dealer is not afraid of the current penalties then it nevertheless supports conclusion that the penalties shall remain severe and if they are lowered, students will get addicted

Can anyone help me to decode this?🤨

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