Thank you for your question. This is an errors in reasoning question. Let's analyze the stimulus first.
The stimulus contains an argument. The conclusion of the argument is that the finance minister was brought down by his own trusted aide. The premises in the stimulus are (1) the finance minister was forced to resign (2) on account of a news story that reported information (3) that could only have come from someone at the secret meeting between the finance minister and the leader of the opposition party, and (4) no one witnessed that meeting except the minister's aide.
The conclusion does not follow from the premises--what about the leader of the opposition party? He could have provided the information that brought the finance minister down, right? So how can we conclude that instead it was the minister's own aide? That is the flaw.
Answer choice (A) describes this flaw--drawing a conclusion (that the aide was to blame) on the basis of evidence (that only the aide and the leader of the opposition party were present at the meeting with the finance minister) that provides equally strong support for a competing conclusion (that the leader of the opposition party was to blame).
Answer choice (B) describes a different flawed method of reasoning. In plain English, this answer choice describes the following flaw: if B cannot occur unless A has first occurred, assuming that A cannot occur without always causing B to occur.
Answer choice (E) describes a different flaw as well--in plain English, that something that could have contributed to a result was alone enough to guarantee the result.
Hope this helps! Please let us know if you have any additional questions.
