Answer:
The correct answer is "Decreasing the activation energy can increase the rate of a reaction"
Step-by-step explanation:
Activation energy is the minimum amount of energy required for a reaction to take place. A certain amount of energy must be "met", before a reaction can proceed, this energy is called the activation energy.
The rate of reaction can be defined as the speed at which a reaction takes place. When the activation energy is high, it takes longer time for the reaction to take place (hence, rate of reaction decreases) because the amount of energy required for the reaction is high but when the activation energy is low, it takes shorter time for the reaction to proceed (hence, rate of reaction increases).
One of the common ways of speeding up a chemical reaction is the addition of a catalyst. A catalyst actually speeds up the rate of a chemical reaction by reducing it's activation energy.