In 1963, Congress approved the Community Mental Health Centers Act, wh

Question

In 1963, Congress approved the Community Mental Health Centers Act, which outlined
plans to release the mentally ill from institutions, incorporate these individuals into their
communities, and provide outpatient treatment. Leading associations of mental health
professionals overwhelmingly applauded these goals and approved of these plans because,
the experts said, the treatment rather than the institutional environment was the crucial
element for the welfare of these patients. Within twenty years, state authorities succeeded in
discharging 95% of these patients from institutional care. In 1983, however, executives from
these same professional associations said that the plight of the mentally ill was worse than
ever. Which if the following, if true, best resolves the paradox in the above passage?

The patients were supposed to be better off with treatment outside than in the institution. It's necessary then to find a reason why, perhaps the patients did not receive the treatment or why the treatment was not successful. The question then is, why was the treatment idea unsuccessful?

A) More people were diagnosed with psychiatric disorders in 1983 than in 1963. An increase in diagnoses doesn't provide an explanation.
b) Many mental health professionals believe that if their peers had administered the project
rather than the state authorities, the results would have been better.The belief of health professionals doesn't provide an explanation.
c) The state budget allocation for services to the mentally ill has not increased faster than the
rate of inflation. Not increasing to match inflation doesn't mean that the services aren't provided.
d) Congress agreed to fund these outpatient services, provided that the money come from cuts
in other domestic programs; these cuts, however, never materialized.No money for the treatment means no treatment, which explains its lack of success.
e) Many of the released patients had, at some time, been addicted to illegal narcotics. Narcotics addiction of some patients is not related to the failure of the treatment plan.

mikemcgarry · Accepted Answer

Hi, I'm happy to talk about this.

With this one, it helps to be familiar with the history behind it, though that's not strictly necessary. In 1963, Congress approved the Community Mental Health Centers Act, which outlined plans to release the mentally ill from institutions, incorporate these individuals into their communities, and provide outpatient treatment. Leading associations of mental health professionals overwhelmingly applauded these goals and approved of these plans because, the experts said, the treatment rather than the institutional environment was the crucial element for the welfare of these patients. Within twenty years, state authorities succeeded in discharging 95% of these patients from institutional care. In 1983, however, executives from these same professional associations said that the plight of the mentally ill was worse than ever. Which if the following, if true, best resolves the paradox in the above passage? Discharging them is a great idea, IF they get the outpatient treatment, which could help them more than remaining locked in an institution. So, if the treatment could help them so much, why weren't they helped? A) More people were diagnosed with psychiatric disorders in 1983 than in 1963. The passage is about a mass of patients, who had be diagnosed and locked in institutions over the course of years, perhaps decades. It's not just about the folks diagnosed in a single calendar year. B) Many mental health professionals believe that if their peers had administered the project rather than the state authorities, the results would have been better. The question is: why didn't the outpatient treatment help these patients as expected --- that part would have been administered by mental health professionals, so this statement is somewhat beside the point. C) The state budget allocation for services to the mentally ill has not increased faster than the rate of inflation. OK, this is getting there . . maybe the money for the programs wasn't keeping up with inflation, so the dollars allocated didn't go as far as they should have. Not bad. D) Congress agreed to fund these outpatient services, provided that the money come from cuts in other domestic programs; these cuts, however, never materialized. In other words, they never came up with the money, so the patients never got the outpatient treatments that theoretically would have been helpful to them. Bingo! That would precisely explain why, 20 years later, the mental ill folks were worse off than ever --- they had been kicked out of their state-sponsored institutions, given no help with services, and left to fend for themselves. Historically, this is exactly what happened in California, when then-Governor Reagan signed the bill to close all those state-run institutions, a huge budget cut, and while all kinds of outpatient care were promised, in practice not a dime was allocated toward them. The vast majority of the mentally ill became homeless, and are still so today, thanks to those decisions now almost half-a-century old. E) Many of the released patients had, at some time, been addicted to illegal narcotics. An aggravating factor, to be sure, but it doesn't explain the wholesale failure of the promised and promising outpatient treatments. The best resolution of the paradox is what, in real history, actually happened. The outpatient services, however potentially beneficial, didn't help these released mentally ill folks because they never received those services. Super-helpful treatment programs were promised in political grandstanding, but never supported with any money, and the homeless, kicked of the state-run institutions, were left on the street with no care. Best answer = D BTW, here's a blog article I wrote about paradox questions: https://magoosh.com/gmat/2012/gmat-cr-paradox-questions/ Here's another paradox question for practice. https://gmat.magoosh.com/questions/1320 When you submit your answer, the next page will have a complete video explanation. Does all this make sense? Let me know if you have any questions. Mike

Bunuel · Answer

OFFICIAL EXPLANATION

The passage states that, on the one hand, the government was successful in releasing mental health patients from institutional care. On the other hand, according to the leading professional health associations, which explicitly supported the government's plans, the plight of the mentally ill only became worse. We need to find one statement that explains what prevented the plan from achieving its expected results.

(A) An increase in the number of people diagnosed with psychiatric disorders does not explain why the plight of psychiatric patients has gotten worse.

(B) Believing that someone else could have better implemented the plan doesnot explain what went wrong with the plan as it was actually implemented.

(C) The passage does not indicate or imply that adequate funding must be tied to the inflation rate. It might have been sufficient, for example, for funding increases to match the rate of inflation.

(D) CORRECT.  This resolves the paradox by offering a reason why the plan failed: only half of the plan was implemented. According to the passage, the original plan supported by the leading mental health associations was "to remove the mentally ill from institutions, incorporate them into their communities, and give them outpatient treatment." While the removal was accomplished, choice D explains that the outpatient treatment services were not; patients, therefore, haven't improved.

(E) The past addictions of release patients do not explain why the plight of the patients became worse after they were released.

sidhu09 · Answer

A) More people were diagnosed with psychiatric disorders in 1983 than in 1963. -  Irrelevant Information - Incorrect 
b) Many mental health professionals believe that if their peers had administered the project rather than the state authorities, the results would have been better. -  Raises more questions than answers. - Incorrect 
c) The state budget allocation for services to the mentally ill has not increased faster than the rate of inflation. -  Even if the budget has not increased, the current budget would have been helpful to treat mentally ill people but does not explain why the plight has increased - Incorrect 
d) Congress agreed to fund these outpatient services, provided that the money come from cuts in other domestic programs; these cuts, however, never materialized. -  The whole idea was to treat the people with outpatient services and not allocating enough budget to these programs has worsened the situation of the people - Correct 
e) Many of the released patients had, at some time, been addicted to illegal narcotics. -  Irrelevant information - Incorrect

methevoid · Answer

Argument - Experts agree to Govt's step on reforming mentally ill people by giving them outpatient medication. In 20 years the same group of experts agree that the situation has worsened.

To Resolve the paradox - We need to find some info which can suggest that something during these 20 years gone amiss.

(A) Diagnosis of more people could not defeat the purpose (of providing care to mentally ill people) -   Reject  
(B) Goes beyond the Premise because in the stimulus the experts agree on the way the congress wants to execute the plan.   Reject  
(C) This is a farther conclusion. Could have been valid if how the lack of fund disrupted the program was also made part of this AC, but just talking about lack of funds do not resolve the paradox.   Reject  
  (D) Bang On - TARGET!!!  
(E) Same reason as in C, if this reason was further elaborated that why illegal narcotics created problems for the program to continue then this could have been winner.   Reject

OptimusPrepJanielle · Answer

In 1963, Congress approved the Community Mental Health Centers Act, which outlined
plans to release the mentally ill from institutions, incorporate these individuals into their
communities, and provide outpatient treatment. Leading associations of mental health
professionals overwhelmingly applauded these goals and approved of these plans because,
the experts said, the treatment rather than the institutional environment was the crucial
element for the welfare of these patients. Within twenty years, state authorities succeeded in
discharging 95% of these patients from institutional care. In 1983, however, executives from
these same professional associations said that the plight of the mentally ill was worse than
ever. Which if the following, if true, best resolves the paradox in the above passage?

The patients were supposed to be better off with treatment outside than in the institution. It's necessary then to find a reason why, perhaps the patients did not receive the treatment or why the treatment was not successful. The question then is, why was the treatment idea unsuccessful?

A) More people were diagnosed with psychiatric disorders in 1983 than in 1963.  An increase in diagnoses doesn't provide an explanation. 
b) Many mental health professionals believe that if their peers had administered the project
rather than the state authorities, the results would have been better. The belief of health professionals doesn't provide an explanation. 
c) The state budget allocation for services to the mentally ill has not increased faster than the
rate of inflation.  Not increasing to match inflation doesn't mean that the services aren't provided. 
 d)  Congress agreed to fund these outpatient services, provided that the money come from cuts
in other domestic programs; these cuts, however, never materialized. No money for the treatment means no treatment, which explains its lack of success. 
e) Many of the released patients had, at some time, been addicted to illegal narcotics.  Narcotics addiction of some patients is not related to the failure of the treatment plan.

VerbalBot · Answer

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In 1963, Congress approved the Community Mental Health Centers Act, wh

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In 1963, Congress approved the Community Mental Health Centers Act, wh

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615 to 715 in 15 Days (Ria's Strategies)

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