Situation: In the last five years, several residents of Hyper village have reported the sighting of Unidentified Flying Objects (UFOs) in the night sky.
Okay, so what ?
Reasoning: Just because the theory of aliens visiting Earth in UFOs has been investigated and discarded by scientists several decades ago when similar sightings had been reported, it does not mean that the residents are making up stories about the sightings.
Author of argument is giving reasoning to consider it for further investigation and not discard it as a mere hearsay.
Conclusion: The scientists and local authorities should lead an immediate investigation into the visits of aliens in UFOs.
Question stem asks to weaken the conclusion.
That means, we need to have alternate reasoning to how that scientists and local authorities should not lead immediate investigation or investigation.
The only evidence we have is people sighting UFO's.
If we can attack the evidence in any case, it would do the work for us.
Lets get to options:
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A. Recently, many TV channels in Hyper have started airing programs depicting the possibility of the existence of aliens.
Even if many TV channels have started airing about existence of aliens, it cannot attack the conclusion.
It instead shows that people might have started believing there is something, that's why news channels have started airing about it. In any scenario, it gives more incentive to lead investigation on what is happening.
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B. Most of the people who reported the sightings in the last five years live alone in the village.
Even if people live alone, those sightings are true. We cannot discredit the sighting on the mere factor that people were alone. They might be highly intellectuals or scientists or observers. This option does not give us any solid criterion for attacking the conclusion. Even if we are able to discredit one or two cases, we cannot discredit most of the cases on mere factor of loneliness. It is saying most but not all. 6/10 is most. 4 cases might still be well observers
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C. All the reports made in the last five years were made by people who were at the time out on a solitary night walk.
Okay. This indicates a pattern by saying all of the reports were made by same pattern. So, if we are able to discredit that pattern, it will result in all the cases being spurious and hence give incentive to not pursue the investigation.
There might be different factors included here:
1- Solitary- It is saying all cases were by people on solitary walks. So, there were no other people to verify. This might signify, they just made that up. If we see from the leading authority POV, they might able to refute that no one can verify the findings. So we can definitely attack the conclusion. It will help in weakening the argument.
2- Night walk- This is not as strong as 'Solitary' but from the leading authority's POV, they can combine both and say, it might be something else. Maybe stars or maybe something else.
This option gives strong evidence to discredit all the evidences and hence can be considered as a valid answer.'
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D. Majority of the people of Hyper are great believers of science and scientific research.
This option could instead strengthen the conclusion by saying all people respect science and hence could be considered as valid sightings. Giving more incentive to pursue the investigation for them. This instead strengthens.
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E. Many people in Hyper village are in two minds when it comes to believing in theories about aliens and UFOs.
The first trigger here would be 'Many' not all. Even if many people are of 2 minds, we cannot say all were of 2 minds. This option help us attack the conclusion or discredit any evidence. We can pass this one.
We can go with
C as answer .