Question: When facing various challenges, people in today’s digital world heavily rely on private, online information-seeking behaviour. Individuals who experience depression will often attempt to understand their predicament and seek remedy by searching the Internet for depression-related information and treatment. A recent report says that there exists evidence of many searches comprising the word depression, during and just after the elections, in country Y. So, it can be concluded that the election is experienced by many people in country Y as a truly psychologically traumatizing event—and as such as being potentially depressionogenic.
Which of the following statements MOST seriously weakens the conclusion drawn in the passage?
If depression increases during election time in country Y, the sale of anti-depressants should also increase during this time. Hence option (a) weakes the conclusion in the passage.
Options (b) and (d) talk about other contries and hence are irrelevant since conclusion talks about specifically contry Y.
Options (c) and (e) support the conclusion.
Hence, option (a).