(1) Identify the Question Type

The language "weakens" and "if true" indicates that this is a Weaken the Conclusion question. The "EXCEPT" variation indicates that we need to find and eliminate 4 "weaken" answers. The "odd one out" answer, an answer that does not weaken, will be the correct answer.

(2) Deconstruct the Argument

Given the opportunity to mention one song from any period of their lives, the survey respondents, who were between 40 and 60 years old, overwhelmingly named songs that were popular when they were aged between 13 and 17. The author claims that this data indicates that music has more emotional power over teenagers than over other age groups.

(3) State the Goal

We're asked to find something that does not weaken the argument. The four (incorrect) answers, which will weaken the argument, must each make the conclusion at least somewhat less likely to be true or valid. The correct answer will either strengthen the conclusion or be irrelevant to the conclusion.

The passage leaves no doubt that the participants disproportionately named songs that were popular when they were teenagers. So, to weaken the argument, we must introduce possible alternative explanations for this finding. In other words, we need to identify another possible reason – apart from the greater inherent emotional impact of music – why so many of the survey participants would name songs from that particular period of their lives.

(4) Work From Wrong To Right

(A) If the survey asked participants to focus on their teenage years, then the participants may have been biased. The preponderance of songs from their teenage years may simply reflect that bias, rather than signifying anything important about the music itself.

(B) The argument concluded that the music itself inherently causes an emotional impact. This statement, by contrast, indicates the opposite: an emotional event causes someone to remember a particular song. If teenagers are more likely to experience emotional events, then they're also more likely to remember a particular song associated with the event, but not because the music itself caused the emotional impact; rather, the music gains emotional power simply by association with those separate events.

(C) CORRECT. Reasonable people might disagree as to whether this choice is irrelevant or whether it strengthens the conclusion; either way, it does not weaken the conclusion. If people have better recollection of memories that are more emotionally intense, then the conclusion in the passage -- that music is remembered best when it was most emotionally potent -- is supported by this choice.

(D) If the participants listened to a greater number of songs as teenagers than at other periods in their lives, then they would reasonably be expected to remember more songs from their teenage years than from other periods, and there would be a greater probability that any song selected would be from this period. In this case, the survey result simply reflects the greater quantity of music to which the participants were exposed as teenagers, rather than any inherent quality of the music itself.

(E) If this statement is true, then most of these songs would have been popular for a substantial time before and/or after the participant's teenage years, too. In that case, even though those songs were popular when the participants were teenagers, they were also popular during other periods of the participants' lives; we don't know at what age the cited song impacted that participant specifically.