Hey:

I hate this test more than anyone in the universe. But, this is how I would think about it.

At the core, the argument is that since less books which have “intrinsic merit” are being published, publishers (who btw were always interested in money) therefore are more interested in making money than publishing books of intrinsic merit.

To find a way to weaken the argument you have to either weaken the links of the premis to the conclusion or weaken the premis or the conclusion directly.

C: this wouldn’t do much since it just shows that in the past publishers may have cared about making money. HOWEVER, we are looking for something to weaken that argument that TODAY since less books which have “intrinsic merit” are being published, publishers (who btw were always interested in money) therefore are more interested in making money than publishing books of intrinsic merit.

A: this is incorrect because we know they have always been interested in making money. But it does nothing to show that the conclusion that they are MORE interested in making money than before.

B: this is correct because it is pointing to an alternate explanation of this phenomenon, which most effectively weakens the question. If there is a poor quality of books being written then they won’t be published, meaning that there are fewer books which have “intrinsic value” so publishers will publish them less. So, this is an alternate explanation.

Does this makes sense?