It is generally believed that people receiving frequent medical checku

thank you for your explanation but I still don't understand why choice A is correct

(A) the recommended treatments for complications of many chronic illnesses involve hospitalization, even if those complications are detected while barely noticeable
Correct answer

(B) medical checkups sometimes do not reveal early symptoms of those chronic illnesses that are best treated in a hospital
this widens the gap thus wrong answer

(C) the average length of a hospital stay is the same for those who receive frequent checkups as for those who do not
out of scope

(D) people with chronic illnesses generally receive medical checkups more frequently than people who are not chronically ill

A causes B,but B will not necessarily cause A

(E) the average length of a hospital stay for people with a chronic illness tends to increase as the illness progresses
The average lenght is not discussed but the frequency of visits is discussed

we need to find an answer choice that would be opposite to the premise that more frequent checks lead to fewer hospitalizations
answer A is fine

The correct choice is A - Justifies that people with chronic illnesses, checkups may more often result in treatments that require hospitalization than in treatments that could prevent hospitalization.

Hello GMATNinja sayantanc2k

I am confused between A and B and not sure why B is wrong

(B) medical checkups sometimes do not reveal early symptoms of those chronic illnesses that are best treated in a hospital

If chronic illnesses have a low probability to be determined, then regular checkups might increase this probability. If the probability increases, then the patients have a more likelihood that they will be hospitalized and hence this can be the potential answer

Can you share your thoughts here?

Hi @Pikolo,

Statement B is incorrect. Let's deep-dive into the hypothesis. The fact that occasionally a checkup fails to reveal early symptoms of a chronic illness best treated in a hospital does not indicate that frequent checkups of people with chronic illnesses would lead to more frequent hospitalization than less frequent checkups would. Thus, this talks about revealing the symptoms of chronic illnesses, on the other hand, we are looking for a prompt that refers to people who ALREADY HAVE chronic illness.

Hope this helps.

Option "A" was a straightforward choice for me as it explained "why" for people with chronic illnesses, frequent medical checkups are likely to lead to more frequent hospitalization.

This post is to remove confusion between option A and option D.

Option D gives reasoning for the increased rates of check ups for people with chronic illnesses compare to people who do not have chronic illnesses.
But we are looking for more frequent hospitalization not check ups. So, clearly we can remove option D as irrelevant.

However, option A perfectly perfectly gives reasoning for more frequent hospitalization.

We need to find out that why hospitalization is increased as frequent medical checks happen.
( in normal scenarios, if does medical check up on time, then hispitalization is less)

Think for a moment. In what scenarios, such case is possible.

When you go for medical check up and you need to do tests again for detection . you go again then test again then stay in hospital. If it is serious or something that needs long time to cure, you need to regularly visit again for therapy .

if you don't do medical test , you don't know you have illness and you may no need to be hospitalized.( of course later it would be more serious)

E.g. Tuberculosis : when you don't know you have TB, then you don't visit. But once you know . Doctor would ask for regular visits and check ur health periodically. Sometimes for tests you need to stay in hospital also.

On other side, if you have cough/cold and you do frequent medical checkups then doctor can find out illness on time( maybe have covid19?) and treatment can be done on time. Otherwise maybe you need to stay in hospital for long.

So depends on illness , these 2 scenarios would be applicable.

The question is : why in chronic illness( long term illness) , medical checkups end up in increasing hospitalization.

I hope it is clear.

Hi, can anyone please explain how E is incorrect?
I was confused between A and E (I totally understand why A is correct but don't understand what is wrong with option E)

The passage ends as follows:

But for people with chronic illnesses, frequent medical checkups are likely to lead to more frequent hospitalization since __________.

Notice that what completes the passage has to explain why "frequent medical checkups" are likely to lead to "more frequent hospitalization."

Now, let's consider choice (E).

(E) the average length of a hospital stay for people with a chronic illness tends to increase as the illness progresses

Notice that (E) explains the wrong thing. (E) explains why "the average length of a stay" increases.

Information on why the average length of a stay increases does not explain why hospitalization, i.e. stays, becomes more frequent.

(B) medical checkups sometimes do not reveal early symptoms of those chronic illnesses that are best treated in a hospital

If chronic illnesses have a low probability to be determined, then regular checkups might increase this probability. If the probability increases, then the patients have a more likelihood that they will be hospitalized and hence this can be the potential answer

Can you share your thoughts here?

avigutman RonTargetTestPrep KarishmaB GMATNinja ThatDudeKnows

Elite097 The argument claims that for people with chronic illnesses, frequent medical checkups are likely to lead to more frequent hospitalization.
Answer choice (B) discusses the discovery of early symptoms of chronic illnesses, so this is about people who didn't know they had a chronic illness, and now they do.
Do we have reason to believe that discovering that you have a chronic illness (sooner rather than later, thanks to a high frequency of checkups) leads to more frequent hospitalization?
Answer choice (B) says "chronic illnesses that are best treated in a hospital" which is very different from "more frequent hospitalization".
Just because you're being treated for something in a hospital doesn't mean that you're being hospitalized. And, it certainly doesn't imply more frequent hospitalization.