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Economist: On average, the emergency treatment for an elderly person for injuries resulting from a fall costs $11,000. A new therapeutic program can significantly reduce an elderly person's chances of falling. Though obviously desirable for many reasons, this treatment program will cost $12,500 and thus cannot be justified.

Which of the following, if true, most seriously undermines the conclusion of the argument?

A. Among elderly people who had followed the program for only a few months, the number of serious falls reported was higher than it was for people who had followed the program for its recommended minimum length of one year.
--> Irrelevant

B. Falls resulting in serious injuries are less common among elderly people living in nursing homes than they are among elderly people who live alone at home.
--> irrelevant

C. A frequent result of injuries sustained in falls is long-term pain, medication for which is not counted among the average per-person costs of emergency treatment for elderly people's injuries from such falls.
--> correct as it attacks the premise saying the figure based on which conclusion is being derived is actually more than that.

D. The new therapeutic program focuses on therapies other than medication, since overmedication can cause disorientation and hence increase the likelihood that an elderly person will have a serious fall.
--> this option talks of overmedication and doesnt speaks of therapies. we actually dont know what are the result of therapies and also we cant assume overmedication frequently

E. A significant portion of the cost of the new therapeutic program is represented by regular visits by health care professionals, the costs of which tend to increase more rapidly than do those of other elements of the program.
--> going extreme this option would support the conclusion/ anyway we can immediately reject this option as it doesnt matter what is the composition and variation of 12500. we are focussing on the conclusion stating new program is futile.

Hope this helps..!!

Thanks buddy!!

Closely going through your explanation and the premise, the answer made sense to me. If the cost quoted as 11,000$ is actually more than that, we can say that the cost of new therapy definitely makes sense.

Also as u mentioned, D says about overmedication and not therapy makes me feel that I should go through the premise and the options more closely.

Economist: On average, the emergency treatment for an elderly person for injuries resulting from a fall costs $11,000. A new therapeutic program can significantly reduce an elderly person's chances of falling. Though obviously desirable for many reasons, this treatment program will cost $12,500 and thus cannot be justified.

Argument Analysis
Emergency treatment (option 1) - Costs $11,000
New program(option 2) - will cost $12,500
Conclusion: Option 2 is costlier than option 1 and thus cannot be justified.

Prethinking:
The author draws the conclusion from the inequality option2 > option1.
To weaken this we have to show that option2 is cheaper than option1.
Different ways to weaken the conclusion:
1. Person undergoing option 1 treatment requires lot of medications, nurse care.these costs are not included in calculation of emergency treatment(option 1).
2. Person undergoing option 1 treatment cannot resume work for X months where person undergoing option 2 treatment can resume work immediately. hence the cost of treat can be justified.[in this case elderly persons cannot be expected to resume work ]
3. If its for a certain disease, we can weaken by saying that option 2 is a permanent cure and option 1 is temporary cure. the higher cost for option 2 can be justified in this case.

In going thro' the AOs, only C weakens the conclusion: option2 > option1

Also pay close attention to words such as average and other quantifier words

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Both of the above users have explained it very clearly. The key lies in understanding the meaning of the argument and what you are supposed to do. 'and thus cannot be justified.' - this is important in deciding what you are supposed to do.

Program X costs 11k, program y prevents the cause and costs 12.5k but is costly. You are asked to weaken the conclusion that program Y is of no use. Once you come to this point you can easily choose C.

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Hi,

I do not agree with the explanation provided for C to be wrong, C does not say that the cost for medication for longterm pain is significant, it can be less amount as well may be $200 in which case the cost of therapeutic treatment will still be higher. It is said that we should not assume when reviewing answer choices, why are we assuming that that cost of medication is significant enough to make the other option attractive?

D seems to be better choice, since it says that the emergency treatment cost is not the one time cost, I mean this treatment increases the possibility of fall and that means another 11,500 cost but on the other hand therapeutic treatment does not opens up such possibilities.

Kindly comment where I am wrong especially about the logic for C?

Regards,

Thank you for the explanation. I got it now. But what I do not understand is there are always blue areas in critical reasoning questions. I have sort of mathematical mind in which x has definite values so not good for such problems,

I have solved more than 150 CR but my accuracy is stuck at 60% and timing is 4 min per CR, can you please guide me how to improve it? I have e-Gmat course and clear about all the concepts for CR but when it comes to solving question, I narrow down to two choices and chose the wrong one.

Can you give me a strategy for improving CR?

Thank you so much,

Regards,

How about option E. As Ron mentioned - 2/
some hidden financial savings that's not inherent in the original $12500 price tag (and that would therefore lower the real cost of the treatment program) - Doesn't E mentions the hidden costs.

C is right. Can't question that but please help me understand what is wrong with E.

Remember we shouldn’t assume anything in CR.
In choice E it is not mentioned if the cost of visits by health care professional can be reduced significantly and hence we can’t conclude anything from it.
Thanks

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