#20 - The public square was an important tool of democracy

[emilysnoddon]

I had difficulty with this question. I chose B because of lack of an alternative. Can someone please explain why C is an assumption the argument requires? I was thrown off because I thought this could not be correct since effectiveness was discussed no where in the stimulus. Any help would be much appreciated.

Thank you,

Emily

[Jon Denning]

Hi emily,

Thanks for the question! I love this question—really this question type—as it's a Supporter Assumption problem. What that means is that the conclusion will present an idea or some term(s) that aren't mentioned elsewhere in the stimulus, and that's a real problem for the author: new info in a conclusion is immediately suspect. I mean, why believe it if there's no prior support for it? So if we're meant to explain the author's reasoning in arriving at that new information, it becomes necessary to connect it back to the premises given and try to have it become a more cohesive argument (note that this is also how Justify questions often operate).

Not all Assumption questions are Supporters, as the other type, Defender, appears a little more often, but when you see Supporters you're in good shape if you know how they work!

So what's the new info here that tipped me off?

The conclusion introduces the idea of having "freedom of expression," meaning people are able to talk about things freely and without censorship. Nowhere else in this stimulus is the notion of free discussion mentioned, so the correct answer choice MUST connect that novel piece to some other piece in the premises. It doesn't have to be a perfectly explicit premise point but it does need to be a central idea suggested there.

That means that right away any choice that doesn't contain the idea of free expression (or anything synonymous) can be ruled out!

Let's check:

(A) has it: "complete freedom of expression"
(B) does not: it's only about the availability of internet access
(C) has it: "discuss issues freely"
(D) does not: it's only about the importance of ideas discussed online
(E) does not: it's only about public forums besides the internet

So we're down, just that quickly, to (A) and (C).

Now we need to decide which of those two ties the need for free expression to the idea of what it takes for democracy to work. Answer choice (A) fails in that, since it only tells us how much freedom of expression public square speakers had ("complete freedom"), and nothing on why it matters to democracy. It doesn't tie freedom of expression to anything else!

Answer choice (C) gives us what we need, though. It says if people cannot speak freely then a public forum may not perform as well (be as effective) as a tool of democracy. That's our prephrase: the author thinks free expression (online and in public) is important for these tools of democracy to work.

So a little tricky at first, but now that you've seen this in operation—or at least seen it made explicit, since I'm certain you've seen this question type many, many time before—you should be able to check every future Assumption question to see if it's a Supporter, and then apply this approach to quickly move through the answers

I hope that helps!

Jon

[Etsevdos]

How do we negate A /C?
A: People speaking ....did not have...complete...expression" Does not ruin argument.
C. A public forum ....freely". Eff-> discuss freely; negating necessary==> effective as tool of dem --> does not require that you discuss freely. Was struggling a bit with "can" so want to confirm.

[Adam Tyson]

Confirmed! Nice work, etsevdos! If you want to negate a conditional claim, all you have to do is show that the necessary condition is not, in fact, necessary. So, change that "can" to a "cannot" and you're good! Another way to look at it is to say that the sufficient condition is not, in fact, sufficient - a lack of freedom of expression is not sufficient to show the possibility of losing effectiveness. In simpler terms, just say to yourself "freedom of expression doesn't matter".

There's more than one way to negate an answer, and you found a perfectly good one.

[isoifer]

This is probably a stretch, but for answer choice B, wouldn't having the same level of access to the Internet impact peoples' freedom of expression? Without this access, people would not have as much freedom of expression as did people speaking in the public square.

[Alex Bodaken]

isoifer,

Thanks for the question! I think common sense tells us that there is some connection between internet access and freedom of expression, but it's vital to make sure that whatever the answer choice we select is, as the question stem notes, "an assumption required of the argument." That means if this answer choice were untrue, then the argument could not be true. In order to test that, we use what we call the Assumption Negation Technique, wherein we negate the answer choice and see if it weakens the conclusion, if it does, then it is the credited answer. The negation of answer choice (B) would read: "All citizens do not have the same level of access to the Internet." If this were true, would it weaken the conclusion? Not really, as it doesn't really effect the conclusion...for example, if some citizens have better/more internet access than others, that doesn't mean that Internet users should (or shouldn't) have more (or less) freedom of expression. In other words, disparate levels of internet access has no bearing on the conclusion, and so it cannot be what must be true in order for the conclusion to be true.

Hope that helps!
Alex