tarobapo
I don't think that the answer choice is correct. The argument is "to improve students' academic performance." How do smoking and drinking have anything to do with this argument? At best, this strengthens the argument: since students smoke and drink, then to pay for it they would have to perform better academically.
E should be correct, in my opinion, since if money is not a good incentive for students, they might not want to work for it.
Edit: I tried to translate explanation from Chinese and the explanation given was that the plan has unintended side effects. But since the question is to weaken the ARGUMENT, I am confused why this would ever be correct.
The argument is a typical plan type of argument: there is a problem (low academic performance), and there is a plan to solve it (pay students on the basis of metrics such as attendance, behavior, tests and class work)
To strengthen or weaken a plan, there are 3 directions: 1. achievable? 2. feasible? 3. side-effects?
E choice is a trap. It simply says that the plan is not a good plan WITHOUT providing any value-added information. "Merely reject the argument without providing any evidence" is a logic error choice in argument evaluation questions, like a question: xxx's response to yyy is flawed because_____. So I think E is at least not GMAC's type of correct answer.
Although C is not straightforward, it is the BEST choice among the 5.