my first thought reading the stimulus was wait.. most selected does not mean that most people chose that selection. There could be other options that collectively garnered more votes.

The only way to prove that it had exercised "much influence" over a great number of readers is for that book to be the pick of MANY or most of those readers. If 3 people picked 1984, but 60 people each picked a different book, like each person named a previously unmentioned book, then it would not be safe to assume that 1984 had that much influence. Maybe some influence, but to say much influence would be way too strong of a conclusion to make.

I just realized that the factions produced have views and aims that differ just as much as they do from the dominant party. So that would support the idea that they would need to address these issues to stay in power, since they might be just as dissatisfied with each other, thus prompting producing factions to overthrow the party

Even if we assume that D is an incentive for staying in school, it does not weaken the idea that the program in the stimulus has not also affected dropout rates.

Even if we presume principle of charity, that the placement offices are an incentive, it does not weaken the cause/effect assumption in the stimulus. So it could introduce another cause, but it doesn't rule out or contradict the assumed cause.

Also, like another comment said, we cannot reliably assume that the placement offices aren't a part of the program instituted 2 years ago.

However, A more clearly weakens the idea that the program caused lower dropout rates, because the ones who want to drop out can't get jobs, which causes them to stay in school.

I got the correct answer, but reading the explanation is just confusing me.

I picked A because I thought that this would help confirm that less methane would be produced as a byproduct of better diet: if better quality food means more production/cow (what A is saying), and the stimulus said that the population is growing to keep demand w/ meat and milk production, better quality food might allow for less cow population expansion. Which leads to the conclusion that less methane would be produced.

Is my reasoning incorrect here? I do not understand the explanation given