Thanks for the question! So let’s break apart this question. We’re asked for “which one of the following would it be most helpful to know in order to judge whether what the scientist subsequently learned calls into question the hypothesis?” So this isn’t actually asking us to either strengthen or weaken the hypothesis! The key part here is “what would it be most helpful to know?” That’s the main thing we’re being asked here. So we’re looking for something that helps us evaluate this argument, and that’s the kind of question this is. And so we want to know something that will help us decide the following question: does what the scientist learned weaken the argument? But as you said, we ourselves aren’t trying to weaken this argument. But we also aren’t trying to strengthen it. We want to find some information that will help us figure out if the scientist’s info was good or bad for the hypothesis.
Hope this helps! Feel free to ask any other questions that you might have.
