Historian: The spread of literacy

Answer choices

1. A

   Opposite6% picked this

   A demagogue can never enlist the public support necessary to topple an existing regime unless a comprehensive system of

   This answer is suggesting that demagogues benefit from there being a comprehensive system of general education in place (it's required for toppling a regime). But the argument was saying the opposite, that demagogues come to prominence in the interim, before a general system of education is in place. This answer could be fixed by saying something more like, "a demagogue is more likely to be able to enlist the public support necessary to topple an existing regime if a comprehensive system of general education is not in place".

   6%
2. B

   Too Strong: without / no10% picked this

   Without literacy there can be no general awareness of the injustice

   This is too harshly worded. The passage said that the spread of literary informs more people of injustice. This answer is saying, "until there is literacy, no one has any awareness of injustice". (We should also be leery of any Necessary Assumption answer choice that sounds like it's regurgitating a single claim. Correct answers either sound like a new idea we haven't heard, a blend of ideas we have heard, or ruling out a possible objection that we haven't heard.)

   10%
3. C

   Too Strong: Any6% picked this

   Any comprehensive system of general education will tend to preserve the authority

   The argument was only saying that education makes us less vulnerable to clever demagogues calling for change. It never committed itself to the extreme claim that "100% of comprehensive systems of general education will preserve the authority of benign regimes in more than 50% of cases."

   6%
4. D

   Correct71% picked this

   A lack of general education affects the ability to differentiate between legitimate and illegitimate

   Why this is right

   The argument made it sound like a lack of general education will leave the populace vulnerable to clever demagogues calling for change. Is that connected to our ability to differentiate between legitimate and illegitimate calls for reform? Yes, if we get conversational with it. This answer is frustrating for anyone trying to assemble the formal logic to this argument, but a demagogue is a "mere opportunist", not a true reformer. The concept of demagoguery (its dictionary meaning) is to sort of rile up the anger of the public in a disingenuous way in order to gain power. Demagogues play off of people's prejudices and fears. They don't make genuine policy suggests for reform. The author had acknowledged that literacy, in the right circumstances (apparently, with a comprehensive system of general education in place) leads to an increased capacity to see through a demagogue's act: "You're not a true reformer. You're just an opportunist." But the author seemed worried that widespread literacy would happen before there was general education in place, and that a lack of general education would leave people vulnerable to demagogues. So the author must have been thinking that you don't get the "increased capacity to distinguish true reformers from mere opportunists" simply in virtue of having widespread literacy. The existence or lack of general education affects the population's capacity to differentiate between the two. If we negated this answer, it would say that "a lack of general education has nothing to do with people's ability to differentiate between legit and illegitimate calls for reform. That would weaken the argument, because it would make it seem like lacking a system of general education isn't a bad thing, when it comes to vulnerability to demagogues.

   Skill tested: Necessary Assumption · how this choice captures the argument's function is the move to repeat next time.

   71%
5. E

   Too Strong: Any8% picked this

   Any benign regime that fails to provide comprehensive general education will be toppled by

   The conclusion is only saying that some benign regimes will be toppled. The author doesn't have to think that lacking a comprehensive general education system guarantees that benign regimes get toppled.

   8%