请教OG11-15

已经查过前人对这道题的讨论，但是都没有谈到自己疑惑的地方，所以再次重新发帖，希望各位牛牛能够帮忙解答，谢谢！

原题：

A resercher studing drug addicts found that, on average, they tend to manipulate other people a great deal more than nonaddicts do. The researcher concluded that people who frequently manipulate other people are likely to become addicts.

which of the following, if true, most seriously weakens the researcher's conclusion?

A.after becoming addicted to drugs, drug addicts learn to manipulate other people as a way of obtaining drugs.

B.when they are imprisoned, drug addicts often use their ability to manipulate other people to obtain better living conditions.

C.peole who are likely to become addicts exhibit unusual behavior patterns other than frequent manipulation of other people

D.people who are likely to become addicts exhibit unusual behavior patterns other than frequent manipulation of other people

E.the addicts that the researcher studied were often unsuccessful in obtaining what they wanted when they manipulated other people

答案：A

我的问题是：

researcher的conclusion究竟是想说那些经常表现出manipulate other people这个动作的人有变成addicts的倾向？

还是说某些人变得经常去manipulate other people是在变成addicts之前？

对这个conclusion含义的理解不是非常的清楚，所以在A和D之间不知如何选择。谢谢大家的帮助！

此题思路：

题意：一些研究者发现，嗑药的人比不嗑药的人更倾向于操控别人。研究者推论,经常操控别人的人容易成为嗑药者。

问：哪个选项削弱了研究者的推论。

A，选项是“在开始嗑药之后，嗑药者学习操控别人，以获取毒品”，这就提供了嗑药的人倾向于操控别人的其他原因。而不是研究者的推论“经常操控别人的人容易成为嗑药者”。在研究者的推论中“经常操控别人”是因，“容易成为嗑药者”为果；而这与选项的因果关系相反。也就是A选项削弱了推论。

B,无关选项

C,无关选项

D,选项说“容易成为嗑药者的人，除了经常操控别人之外，展现出不寻常的行为模式。”，而这种说法并不能削弱研究者的推论，甚至有加强推论之嫌。

E，选项说“研究者研究的嗑药者，当他们操控别人的时候，经常不能成功的获取他们想要的东西。”，是无关选项。

非常感谢ad264和sch_qy的详细解答！尤其是sch_qy关于各个选项的分析，非常透彻，现在已经完全明白了。

我对选项D的错误理解应该是源于对other than这个词组的错误理解，但进而又有个小疑问，如果把other than改成rather than，是不是也可以weaken那个researcher的conclusion呢？谢谢^^

other than 是除了   rather than 是胜于 A rather than B 是A胜于B，

从语法的角度，"unusual behabior patterns"与"frepuent manipulation"是不能相互比较的，平行结构不对等。

顶上去