Critical Reasoning

Recent dental research shows that bacteria around the gum line produces a substance that in sufficient amounts induces preterm labor in pregant women and clogging of arteries, both of which add to payouts by health insurers to medical-service providers. In response, one health-insurance company has begun to provide additional dental benefits, including coverage for one additional cleaning by a professional hygenist or dentist each year, to pregnant women and to people proven to be at high risk of developing heart disease.
The insurance company's response described above would be most likely to minimize the company's payouts to medical-service providers if which of the following were also true?

(A) Accumulation of the substance that induces preterm labor can be prevented by daily use of certain inexpensive mouthwashes.
(B) It often takes at least a year for the substance that induces clogging of the arteries to accumulate to a dangerous level.
(C) The daily dental-hygiene habits of pregant women and heart-disease patients, as a group, are similar to those of the general population.
(D) The risk of developing heart disease is greater for individuals with a family history of heart disease than for those with no such history.
(E) The medical costs associated with preterm labor are generally less than those associated with heart disease


Source : https://www.west.net/~stewart/gmat/criti ... ing[2].htm

by POE...D
A: weaken the arg
B: no timeline in the arg
C: general population...Out of Scope
D: keep it
E: don't care. still it is cost to insurance

Thanks a lot
but can someone give a detailed explanation for the question

cz its asking how the company can minimize the payouts to dental people

a) the alternative i.e. mouthwash which will help to prevent preterm labor hence reducing the payouts
b) this one is also reducing the payouts cz pregnancy is for a period of 9 months but it takes 1 year to induce clogging
c) out of scope
d) confused
e) out of scope

please someone explain.

Confusing, but I would go with B. The questions asks why adding one cleaning a year would help. Try denying B. If it doesn't take a year - say the plaque could build up in 6 weeks - then annual cleaning wouldn't do the job.

IMO - B.

Tani Wolff - Kaplan wrote:Confusing, but I would go with B. The questions asks why adding one cleaning a year would help. Try denying B. If it doesn't take a year - say the plaque could build up in 6 weeks - then annual cleaning wouldn't do the job.

Hi Tani, In option B i think no restriction is placed on anyone, i.e. if a person has a higher level of a substance than he/she is eligible for the treatment whether or not that person has any risk of getting a heart disease, but on the other hand option D specifies it that only only those persons with troubled heart problems family background have the chances of having a heart disease, so if the insurance people go for this option than they will definitely be able to cut their cost because pool of people are now will be less..!!!
this is what i think..!!!

The question is not what would cut the insurance company's costs, but whether the plan to offer cleaning to two groups once a year would help. That eliminates the mouthwash option (A) because that is not part of the plan. D simply tells us that there is a way to identify people with the potential for developing heart disease. The fact that one of the ways to "prove" people are at risk is family history doesn't tell us whether cleaning once a year will work. If they had said "regular" cleaning, or some such vague term I could see D, but I am reluctant to ignore that "once a year".

I have to agree with Tani. The answer given is D. However this cannot be correct. I will argue, In fact, that there is no correct answer to this question.

May we just take a moment to caution people that there are lots of questions floating around out there and some of them are not particularly good. Some of my own questions have come under scrutiny when posted and many questions could use some more editing so I am not picking just on this question.

I checked the source that was given in the original posting and it takes you to a website that seems to give free GMAT questions. This particular question does not seem to follow normal GMAT guidelines for logic.

This is a plan question. So, if it is to be on the GMAT it should fit into the general mold that the answer choice supports the fact that the plan will achieve the goal. This is what Tani is talking about above. She is exactly right to say, "The question is not what would cut the insurance company's costs, but whether the plan to offer cleaning to two groups once a year would help." Specifically, will offering a second cleaning per year help to lower expenses?

The correct answer would indicate to us that the plan to offer an additional cleaning will help to "minimize the company's payout to medical-service providers." I will accept a paraphrasing of this as "cut the total costs of care." Since the dental benefits themselves are a cost, we would need to know that the second cleaning will have some benefit to offset the cost.

There are two possibilities as set up by the equation. Either the second cleaning should prevent the pre-term labor or it should prevent the clogging of arteries. Let's look at the choices.

A) Not relevant to this plan. Passing out mouthwash is a different plan. Keep in mind that on a plan question mentioning a different plan does not strengthen or weaken the plan at issue.

B) This would seem to weaken the plan and is not the correct answer - (neither are any of the other choices) You see, if we know that it takes at least a year to accumulate enough plaque to clog arteries then cleaning more than once per year seems unnecessary.

C) Not necessary. Really not sure how good the dental hygiene of the general population is!

D) I can see how someone wanted this to be the correct answer. However, look to the stimulus. We are already told that the people who are going to receive the cleanings are "people proven to be at high risk of developing heart disease." This is a very high standard. We are told that these people are PROVEN to be at high risk. It does not matter how they are proven, perhaps it is family history, maybe it is weight, cholesterol level, lack of exercise, age, it does not matter - the stimulus says they have been PROVEN to be at higher risk. This renders choice D absolutely pointless. The stimulus already tells us something much more than D.

Here is how D could have possibly been somewhat correct- if the stimulus has not referred to "people PROVEN to be at high risk," but had instead said, "people with a family history of heart disease." Now D provides us something. If all we have is family history then D can say "and family history means a greater risk."

E) Really not relevant. We are trying to save money by preventing both preterm labor and heart disease with dental cleanings.


The Verdict: If the question is reworked D could become more relevant, although I am not sure it would be up to GMAT standards. As it stands there is no correct answer.

@ Tani, and David, well guys thanks a lot for such a wonderful explanation. Actually, i look at one aspect of the question while driving at the correct answer choice which i have already explained above, and yeah i didn't have a thought of a "plan" while i was solving the question i think i just got carried away with the flow.

And as suggested by David i think we must practise only those questions which concurs the gmat standard.