Conclusion: "the attempt to prevent alcohol use merely made people want and use alcohol more than they would have if it had not been forbidden."
Why? Because even though between 1951 and 1963, it was illegal in the country to manufacture, sell, or transport any alcoholic beverages, the death rate from diseases related to excessive alcohol consumption during the first five years of this prohibition period was higher than it was during the five years prior to 1951.
So, we have a cause and effect argument. How do we weaken an x causes y argument? We must show that either y actually causes x, or some third factor z causes both x and y.
We are looking for the answer choice that weakens EXCEPT. So, our correct answer will either strengthen or have no effect on the argument.
(A) weakens because it explains that the deaths that occurred during the first five years of the prohibition were caused from drinking that occurred prior to the prohibition period.
(B) weakens because it points to some third factor, i.e. other kinds of behavior that caused the deaths, that was actually the cause of the death rate spiking during the prohibition period.
(C) weakens because it agains points to some third unnamed factor that could have caused the death rate increases that occurred in the ten years before, during and after the prohibition. If the death rate increase spiked during all of those years, it couldn't have been caused by the prohibition since the same effect was observed in all three time periods.
(E) weakens because it again points to a different reason - separate from the ban on alcohol - as to why death rates spiked during the prohibition, i.e. less life-saving medical attention was given to those who had preexisting alcohol-related diseases.
(D) does nothing to the argument because we do not know whether those who died of alcohol related diseases during the prohibition who consumed illegally imported alcoholic beverages that were produced by the same methods as those used within their country (this is important because it rules out any anomalies specific to the country it's being illegally imported from) were people who were already drinking or not. So (D) merely tells us of a method that certain people were using during the prohibition. It does not explain whether or not these people wanted to drink more because of the prohibition and that is why they were getting illegally imported alcohol, or - to that matter - whether they were ordering more alcohol than they had before. Thus, since doing nothing to the argument is NOT weakening it, this is out correct answer.
Hope that clears things up! Please let us know if you have any other questions.
