Premise :1. government-owned gas company has begun selling stoves and other gas appliances to create a larger market for its gas.
2. government-owned gas company is within its rights.
3. the owner of a private gas company might will decide to sell such appliances and surely there would be nothing wrong with that.

Conclusion : The govn-owned company has within its rights to do the same thing as the private company does. There is nothing wrong in this.

Ques : Which one of the following principles, if valid, most helps justify the reasoning above?
Lets analyse the options now :
(A) Government-owned companies have the right to do whatever private businesses have the right to do. - Correct : This is inline with the conclusion we have made and also fills the gap and assumption to arrive at the conclusion.

(B) A government should always take seriously the complaints of merchants.- Incorrect : Whether govn takes the complaints of maerchants seriously has nothing to do with the conclusion to which the author has arived at.

(C) Private businesses have not right to compete with government monopolies. - Incorrect : If this is true, then the conclusion made by the author is completely in opposite direction.

(D) There is nothing wrong with a government-owned company selling products so long as owners of private companies do not complain. - Incorrect : In the argument, nothing is mentioned about whether private companies complain about govn.-owned company selling products.

(E) There is nothing wrong with private companies competing against each other. - Incorrect : The argument is about competition between gov.-owned company and private company and not between private companies.

The OA is published, kudos for above solution is given. What results are you waiting for?
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Premise #1: The government owned company sells its own products via merchants.
Premise #2: Merchants are complaining that the presence of government firm's product hurts their business

Conclusion: Government owned company is well within its rights.

Which one of the following principles, if valid, most helps justify the reasoning above?

(A) Government-owned companies have the right to do whatever private businesses have the right to do. - This is what the conclusion is all about - the ''rights'' of the government owned company. The supportive evidence used is the fact that private gas companies exercise the same rights.

If (A) were not true, it would mean that government owned companies do not have such rights; the conclusion then cannot be supported. Hence, (A) is the right answer choice.

(B) A government should always take seriously the complaints of merchants. - The conclusion is not concerned about complaints of any sort. Hence, eliminate (B).

(C) Private businesses have not right to compete with government monopolies. - This is contradictory to the information provided in the passage: The passage supports both private and government owned gas company's rights. The passage does not claim the denial of rights of any one entity. Hence, eliminate (C).

(D) There is nothing wrong with a government-owned company selling products so long as owners of private companies do not complain. - (D) centers its argument on the private companies ''not complaining'' about the government owned company. The passage is not centered on complaints; instead, it advocates for the rights of the government owned gas firm. Therefore, we can eliminate (D).

(E) There is nothing wrong with private companies competing against each other. - Irrelevant to the context of the passage. Moreover, it does nothing to strengthen the argument. Hence, we can eliminate (E).