Final answer:
To increase the acceleration due to gravity on Earth, one must increase the planet's mass or decrease the distance to its center because gravitational force is directly proportional to mass and inversely proportional to the square of distance according to Newton's law of gravitation.
Step-by-step explanation:
The correct answer to the question of how to increase the acceleration due to gravity on Earth is option A: Increase Earth's mass or decrease the distance from the center of the Earth. According to Newton's universal law of gravitation, the force of gravity, and consequently the acceleration due to gravity, is directly proportional to mass and inversely proportional to the square of the distance between the centers of two objects (in this case, a body and the Earth's center).
Explaining further, if you double the mass of Earth, the gravitational force it exerts would double, which increases weight directly since weight is the gravitational force exerted on an object. On the other hand, if you halve the distance from the center of Earth, the gravitational force (and thus the acceleration due to gravity) increases by a factor of four, because the distance term in the law of gravitation is squared.
Therefore, to increase the acceleration due to gravity on Earth, you would need to do one of the following: increase the mass of Earth so that it has a greater gravitational pull or decrease your distance from the center of Earth to experience a stronger gravitational attraction.