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Identifying the CR question type

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Identifying the CR question type

by sureng » Tue Mar 22, 2011 8:15 am
A major health insurance company in Lagolia pays for special procedures prescribed by physicians only if the procedure is first approved as "medically necessary" by a company-appointed review panel. The rule is intended to save the company the money it might otherwise spend on medically unnecessary procedures. The company has recently announced that in order to reduce its costs, it will abandon this rule.

Which of the following, if true, provides the strongest justification for the company's decision?


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I solved this question correctly and thought it as a paradox type question. Is this correct??
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by force5 » Tue Mar 22, 2011 10:12 am
Sureng it can also be a Strengthening question.
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by Brian@VeritasPrep » Tue Mar 22, 2011 10:46 am
Hey Sureng,

Nice work answering this one correctly!

As far as the categorization goes, keep in mind that the categorization scheme only exists to make these questions easier and more methodical for you. You don't get extra points for saying "the answer is B AND it's a paradox question".

I think there's a lot of overlap between Strengthen questions, Paradox questions, and some "Plan/Strategy" questions - this question stem itself could really lend itself to any of those, but it's more important that you know what your role is: you need to find a new piece of information that shows that the company's plan is likely to achieve its objective. Since the evidence given seems to suggest that it won't do so, there's a paradoxical element to it, too.

Regardless of how you classify this, your job is pretty much the same. You need to identify the objective ("Plan") / conclusion ("Strengthen") or paradox ("Paradox") and then find an answer choice that justifies it. All three procedures should lead you in the same direction:

"To reduce costs, the company will abandon the rule" (even though, paradoxically, the rule exists to save money)

Your job, then is to find a justification for why getting rid of the rule will help save money.



Overall, the biggest key to the question stem is understanding your role. I tell my students that around 90% of the time you should be able to definitively identify the exact category; but the other 10% aren't impossible to categorize...it's just that it's probably easier to accept your role without stressing the hard-and-fast category and just go from there. Even if you don't have a perfect categorization scheme, as long as you know what you're looking for you're in good shape.
Brian Galvin
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Veritas Prep

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by sureng » Tue Mar 22, 2011 12:32 pm
Thanks Brian for the feedback.
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