Strong and weak arguments in exams – UGC NET Question

Statements A, B, D, E and F give a correct account of how strong and weak arguments are assessed in UGC NET-style questions, whereas C is false. Strong arguments need to be relevant, important and sometimes supported by credible sources, while weak ones are often emotional or tangential. Introducing new, unrelated issues is a sign of weakness, and exam items do explicitly ask candidates to judge argument strength. C is wrong because a strong argument can oppose the statement if it does so with relevant and weighty reasons.

Option A:
Option A is incorrect because it omits E and F, which add the points about unrelated new issues and the explicit framing of questions in the exam. Although A, B and D are true, they do not describe the full set of correct statements about strong and weak arguments. Therefore this option under-represents the information given.

Option B:
Option B is incomplete since it still leaves out F, failing to highlight that UGC NET questions specifically use the terminology of strong and weak arguments. While A, B, D and E are correct, they do not mention how this is operationalised in the test. For that reason, this combination is not fully adequate.

Option C:
Option C is correct because it includes exactly A, B, D, E and F, the true statements about the concept and its examination context, and excludes C, which incorrectly rules out strong opposing arguments. It provides a balanced view that strength depends on relevance and importance, not just on agreement with the initial statement. This matches the evaluation criteria in Paper 1.

Option D:
Option D is wrong because it omits A, leaving out the basic exam-oriented definition of a strong argument, and includes only B, D, E and F. Without A, the notion of strength is less clearly tied to relevance and practical importance, so the option fails to capture all the correct statements.