From Manhattan GMAT CAT 1

Advocates insist that health savings accounts are an efficient method to reduce medical expenses. However, widespread adoption of these accounts will soon undermine the public’s health. One reason for this is that most people will be reluctant to deplete their accounts to pay for regular preventive examinations, so that in many cases a serious illness will go undetected until it is far advanced. Another reason is that poor people, who will not be able to afford health savings accounts, will no longer receive vaccinations against infectious diseases.

The statements above, if true, most support which of the following?
A Wealthy individuals will not be affected negatively by health savings accounts.
B Private health insurance will no longer be available.
C Most diseases are detected during regular preventive examinations.
D Some people without health savings accounts are likely to contract infectious diseases.
E The causal relationship between an individual’s health and that person’s medical care has been adequately documented.


So my answer was E. It seems like there is a strong link between "The causal relationship between an individual’s health and that person’s medical care has been adequately documented" and "people will be reluctant to deplete their accounts to pay for regular preventive examinations, so that in many cases a serious illness will go undetected until it is far advanced"
Furthermore D seems to assume that the programs have been adopted (which is not stated or implied). With out that assumption the poor will be able to get vaccinations. What is up?


(D) CORRECT. The argument states that "poor people, who will not be able to afford health savings accounts, will no longer receive vaccinations". Based on this statement, it is reasonable to conclude that some people without health savings are likely to contract infectious diseases.

(E) The argument does not provide enough information to conclude that the causal relationship between an individual's health and that person’s medical care has been adequately documented. In fact, neither the link between medical care and health nor documentation of such a link is directly discussed.

First, pay attention to the structure of the question. It asks us to take the statements in the argument and use them to support an answer choice - not the other way around. In other words, this is a Draw a Conclusion question type. Conclusions must be completely supported by the given statements; we cannot make any assumptions or inferences in doing so.

In other words, if your reasoning is right, this statement: "people will be reluctant to deplete their accounts to pay for regular preventive examinations, so that in many cases a serious illness will go undetected until it is far advanced" would have to completely support this conclusion: "The causal relationship between an individual’s health and that person’s medical care has been adequately documented. " What does it mean to document a causal relationship? Perhaps studies have been done proving a link?

Now, in the real world, I certainly believe there have been many studies about the link between health and medical care. But do the premises presented in this argument address this topic at all, let alone strongly enough for me to draw a definitely-true conclusion?

For D, I agree with you somewhat and will ask our curriculum director to consider changing the language to say "if widely adopted" - I think that's where the issue lies.

However, I have seen things like this on the real test that I feel like I can argue with - yet they're on the real test, so the testwriters think they're fine. I think, if this were an OG question, they'd say that the opening sentence says HSAs "are an efficient method" - not that they will be, once they are implemented, but that they are right now. The later future language addresses not the mere existence of HSAs, but the "widespread adoption" of HSAs (sentence 2). Further, sentence 3 says that this widespread adoption "will soon undermine" - not the widespread adoption of HSAs would undermine, which implies that this adoption may or may not happen, but that it "will soon" undermine, meaning that it is actually happening.

Don't you just love the GMAT? Half the time, I feel like I'm on a debate team. :)

Stacey,

Thanks for your thoughtful reply. You are right. I chose E not because I was confident it was right but because the only other option was D (which left doubt).

What worries me about this question is the fact that E was an option that I had not ruled out. In light of your above posting D is clearly the most direct response. Another flaw in E is why would it need to be documented?

Thanks for your help. That's what makes Manhattan the best.

I am not able to agree with the answer provided to this question.
The passage does not establish any connection between HSA and infectious diseases. In fact even the connection between vaccinations and diseases is not explicit but implied.

Further there is an issue with implementation of HSA as discussed in the post above.
I choose A after some internal debate. My reasoning was as follows.
- Mentioned that poor people will be at loss because of vaccines. Thus implied that the wealthy will not be affected.
- Some people will not want to deplete the account for preventive checks. But again people who can afford to pay from pocket even if account is depleted might not think twice before depleting their account.
I know that the second reasoning is vague but even then A seems the best option. I could not fit D into the answer.
Thanks

hi cap'n



this sort of reasoning is cardinal sin. if i state a fact about group X, then, in general, i am allowed to conclude nothing about group Y.
what you're doing here is allowing your preconceived notions to get in the way of your critical thinking: you're taking the traditional polar opposition between the situation of the poor and that of the rich, and assuming that it applies to everything. there is no justification for doing so.

moreover, notice how general choice 'a' is: it asserts that wealthy people will not be adversely affected by the introduction of HSAs in any way. even if the vaccination issue is irrelevant, there may well be other issues that aren't. for instance, wealthy people might have to pay tens of thousands of dollars from an HSA for a surgery that would have cost then only a $50 co-pay on traditional health insurance. (note that it's not important for you to be able to concoct examples like this one; all that matters is that you realize that the statement is FAR too general to be even remotely supported by the passage.)


ah, but it does.

remember to take the passage's conclusion into account in any evaluation of the significance of other statements.

the conclusion of this particular passage is: widespread adoption of [HSAs] will soon undermine the public’s health.
the final sentence of the passage, which is put forward as support for that conclusion, says that poor people, who will not be able to afford health savings accounts, will no longer receive vaccinations against infectious diseases.
read those two statements together a couple of times; they make a very strong connection between the two phenomena.

Hi Ron,
Thanks for the post.
I can understand that any information about Group 1 does not give me any information on Group 2. But any information on Group 1 may tell me things about NOT (Group 1).
"The poor will always loose" => if you won you are not poor. (note that I have used NOT lost = won)
"Another reason is that poor people, who will not be able to afford health savings accounts, will no longer receive vaccinations against infectious diseases. "
=> If you recive vaccinations you are not poor. => if you recieve vaccines you are rich??? (assuming NOT poor = rich)... ahhh I see now. NOT poor = rich does not hold. (or does it? )
Well now the question is is NOT poor = rich?

whoa man, you're shifting the goalposts here. the reasoning in this most recent post is solid.

BUT

the reasoning in the above post(s) translates, using this analogy, to
the poor will always lose
therefore
the rich will never lose
that's faulty logic.

go back and read your previous post again, and you'll realize that the reasoning you're putting forward in this newest post, although perfectly valid, is different from the logic of the previous post.

--

if you like formal terminology:

the logic in this most recent post is an example of the contrapositive:
if the statement 'if X then Y' is true, then the contrapositive 'if not Y, then not X' is also true.

the problem with the previous post is that you're trying to equate 'if X, then Y' to its inverse, which is 'if not X then not Y'. unfortunately, a statement and its inverse are two completely different assertions; they could be both true, both false, or one of each.

hope that helps

Thanks,
You have a valid point.

Good work, all!