LSAT Question Explanation
PT 112, Section 4, Question 1
Sufficient AssumptionArgument structure
The government should protect and encourage free speech.
Free speech is in the best interest of the people.
Explanation
The conclusion here is not proven. We have no evidence of what a government should/shouldn't do.
So since we're concluding that the government should protect free speech, and the evidence says that free speech is in the people's interest, then my prediction is that the government should do what's in people's best interest.
Note that this may seem like an obvious idea - I think most of us agree that government should do what's in the people's best interest. But it's not stated in the stimulus!! If you bring in that outside idea and just take the conclusion of this stimulus as correct, then you are literally making the assumption on which the argument rests. In LSAT world, the only moral truths/principles you can use will appear be on the paper in front of you. Don't bring in outside ideas.
Answer choices
This matches my prediction. If the government ought to protect and encourage what's in the people's best interest, then the conclusion is proven.
This tells us about some other things that the government should protect and encourage. We don't know from the stimulus if free speech is a basic, inalienable right, so this answer choice wouldn't prove that the government should protect free speech.
Similarly to (B), this tells us about something else the government should protect and encourage but doesn't help us prove they should protect and encourage free speech.
Again, similar to (B) and (C)... based on the stimulus this doesn't prove anything about free speech.
Similar to all the other wrong answers, yet again they try to trick students into bringing in outside information. We don't know if free speech is a universal human right, so this doesn't prove that the government should protect free speech.