How will the right answer fit in terms of support and conclusion?

Only the right answer will be support that must be true if the conclusion is true. You could also say only the right answer will be support for the conclusion that doesn’t bring in anything new.

Highlight the main conclusion in the passage, if there is one:

drinking more coffee than usual impairs overall management ability.

Psychologist: [BACKGROUND]. [SUPPORT]. Because [SUPPORT], this study demonstrates that [CONCLUSION].

Whoa, where’d you get “overall management ability” from? That’s a lot more broad than just the comparison of two specific factors in the support. This author changed the subject, so you know the right answer will have to make a connection between that new wording in the conclusion and the wording in the support.

Map the wording of the answers to the wording of the passage:

(A) …were different from each other…

Cool story, but that doesn’t support any conclusion about “overall management ability”.

(B) Drinking less coffee than usual…

…never comes up in the passage. The passage is not comparing the effects of different amounts of coffee, just making a claim about “drinking more coffee than usual”.

(C) There is no other factor that is more important…

Way too strong. This doesn’t have to be true based on the conclusion, since it’s only making a claim about the effect of one “factor”.

(D) …did not have beneficial effects on overall management ability that outweighed…

This is the only answer with info about “overall management ability”, so best not to make this harder on yourself than need be. But of course, if the conclusion is true, then there must not be those “beneficial effects”. Winner.

(E) …is the most important factor…

Like (C), it doesn’t matter if there are other, more important factors out there. Even if this isn’t true, too much coffee could still hurt “overall management ability”.

(D) is the correct answer.

Common pattern/s in this question: You could totally get there by recognizing that the argument is making a comparison between the pros and cons of “drinking more coffee than usual”. So good on you if you approached it that way. But recognizing that the author changed the subject by bringing in “overall management ability” definitely indicates the right answer will call that out.