In the country of Bedenia, officials have recently

Question

In the country of Bedenia, officials have recently implemented a new healthcare initiative to reduce dangerous wait times at emergency rooms in the country’s hospitals. This initiative increases the number of available emergency nurses and doctors in urban settings: scholarships and no-interest loans are being offered to prospective students in these fields if they work in major city hospitals, relocation packages to urban centers are being offered for current emergency practitioners, and immigration rules are being changed to enable foreign emergency doctors and nurses to more easily move to Bedenia’s major cities.

Which of the following would be most important to determine in assessing whether the initiative will be successful?
 
A. What percentage of current nurses and doctors work in emergency medicine
 
B. Which hospitals in Bedenia have dangerous wait times in their emergency rooms
 
C. Whether a career in emergency medicine pays substantially less than other types of medicine
 
D. Whether wait times could be reduced by means other than increasing the number of available nurses and doctors
 
E. Whether many foreign doctors and nurses are currently not allowed to enter Bedenia

DmitryFarber · Accepted Answer

Hi amanarora87,

You're taking the right general approach, but your application didn't quite work for either answer choice.

D: You said that a Yes would tear down the argument, but why? Our job is to assess the effectiveness of the plan, not to determine whether it's the only possibility. If I argue that I can drive to work, it doesn't weaken my argument to say that I could also take the train.

B: B says we want to find out  which  hospitals have dangerous wait times. This isn't a Yes/No consideration, so the words Yes and No don't mean anything here. This answer choice gets at one of the author's assumptions: putting more doctors in urban emergency rooms will reduce dangerous wait times. What if the dangerous wait times are in rural hospitals? So our analysis should look more like this:

Urban hospitals. This would strengthen the argument, because that's where the plan is routing more doctors.
Rural hospitals. This would weaken the argument, because we are encouraging doctors to go someplace where there are not dangerous wait times. If anything, this might increase the dangerous wait times in rural settings.

Zarrolou · Answer

Lets read carefully the text.

In the country of Bedenia, officials have recently implemented a new healthcare initiative to reduce dangerous wait times at emergency rooms in the country’s hospitals. This initiative increases the number of available emergency nurses and doctors in   urban settings  : scholarships and no-interest loans are being offered to prospective students in these fields if they work in   major city   hospitals, relocation packages to   urban centers   are being offered for current emergency practitioners, and immigration rules are being changed to enable foreign emergency doctors and nurses to more easily move to Bedenia’s   major cities  .

What if the dangerous wait times are in the countryside hospitals? This plan is clearly meant to improve the city's hospital.

Which of the following would be most important to determine in assessing whether the initiative will be successful? 
We have to know where those hospital are before if we want to predict the result of the initiative, B gives us this answer.
 
B. Which hospitals in Bedenia have dangerous wait times in their emergency rooms

The answer to this question is crucial: The problem is in the major cities => the plan is likely to be succesful; otherwise not so much

pqhai · Answer

Good question thelosthippie +1 kudo.

KEY is: "....reduce dangerous wait times at emergency rooms in the   country’s hospitals  ". ==> Not only urban area. What if dangerous wait times happen mainly in rural areas.  But the initiative just try to increase doctors and nurses in major city hospitals . So we need to determine which hospitals in Bedenia have dangerous wait times in their emergency rooms

B is correct.

HumptyDumpty · Answer

I do not fully agree with OA. The plan will take effect on urban hospitals - this is stated. Therefore, we are not interested in hospitals outside urban areas. The plan includes scholarships and 0% loans for students, relocation for practitioners, and immigration help to foreigners. I think the correct answer should assess the efficiency of these instruments.

miro · Answer

They key here is URBAN v/s rural hospitals. The initiative talks about reducing dangerous wait times at country's hospitals while the details continue to highlight increasing the no of doctors and nurses at the URBAN CENTERS. What if dangerous wait times happen mainly in rural areas. So we need to determine which hospitals in Bedenia have dangerous wait times in their emergency rooms.

B is correct.

B is correct.

amanarora87 · Answer

This is an "evaluate the argument type of question".
Hence I went with D

In evaluate the assumption type of question, we are to evaluate a yes or no option and the answer should take 2 separate paths.
The assumption of the argument is that increasing the number of doctors and nurses will reduce wait times
Take option D
1-Yes. The wait times could be reduced by means other than increasing the number of available nurses and doctors. This tears down the argument
2- No. The wait times could not be reduced by means other than increasing the number of available nurses and doctors. This aids the argument.

Take option B
Which hospitals have dangerous wait times in their hospitals

1. Yes. Knowing this will help but it does not resolve whether increasing the number of doctors or nurses there is the answer
2- No. Knowing this is irrelevant but still it does not resolve whether increasing the number of doctors and nurses is the answer.

This is how I am looking at it. Could someone please point out the flaw in this reasoning.

OreoShake · Answer

I think this is a poor question. 'Which hospitals' is a highly vague remark in option C, it does not in any way indicate urban or rural setting. 'Which' can refer to many other demographic indicators, making the option highly ambiguous. Experts, please share your thoughts on the quality of this question. Thanks.

DmitryFarber · Answer

TheLordCommander  That isn't a flaw in the answer choice. It's fine for the answer choice to be vague. The point is that we do need to know which hospitals have long wait times. Are urban hospitals the problem? The fact that some kinds of information of this type (e.g. large vs. small hospitals) wouldn't help doesn't change the fact that we need this information. If we really knew exactly which hospitals were having trouble, that would allow us to consider whether the problem was primarily an urban one.

Nevernevergiveup · Answer

In the country of Bedenia, officials have recently implemented a new healthcare initiative to reduce dangerous wait times at emergency rooms in the country’s hospitals.

This initiative increases the number of available emergency nurses and doctors in urban settings: 
 *scholarships and no-interest loans are being offered to prospective students in these fields if they work in major city hospitals, *relocation packages to urban centers are being offered for current emergency practitioners, and 
*immigration rules are being changed to enable foreign emergency doctors and nurses to more easily move to Bedenia’s major cities.

Which of the following would be most important to determine in assessing whether the initiative will be successful?
 
A. What percentage of current nurses and doctors work in emergency medicine........ % cannot determine the success of the initiative. 
 
C. Whether a career in emergency medicine pays substantially less than other types of medicine............. pay is not important here. even if it is low still jobless people may prefer it. 
 
E. Whether many foreign doctors and nurses are currently not allowed to enter Bedenia...........OFS

But im stuck why B is correct and D is incorrect.

D. Whether wait times could be reduced by means other than increasing the number of available nurses and doctors............ If the real issue is something else and we can solve it by other way easily than initiative, then result of initiative may no be a success.

B. Which hospitals in Bedenia have dangerous wait times in their emergency rooms............. what does which refer to? wait time need not be cured with availablity of doctors. We have no hint of urban/rural hospitals here.

rishabhdxt · Answer

In the country of Bedenia, officials have recently implemented a new healthcare initiative to reduce dangerous wait times at emergency rooms in the country’s hospitals. This initiative increases the number of available emergency nurses and doctors in urban settings: scholarships and no-interest loans are being offered to prospective students in these fields if they work in major city hospitals, relocation packages to urban centers are being offered for current emergency practitioners, and immigration rules are being changed to enable foreign emergency doctors and nurses to more easily move to Bedenia’s major cities.

Which of the following would be most important to determine in assessing whether the initiative will be successful?

A. What percentage of current nurses and doctors work in emergency medicine

knowing % will not help us : Incorrect

B. Which hospitals in Bedenia have dangerous wait times in their emergency rooms

Identifying hospitals with dangerous wait times will help to improve the conditions there and make initiative successful : Correct

C. Whether a career in emergency medicine pays substantially less than other types of medicine

This is shell & game : familiar looking idea yet different; "emergency medicine" is Out of scope

D. Whether wait times could be reduced by means other than increasing the number of available nurses and doctors
 this is out of scope

E. Whether many foreign doctors and nurses are currently not allowed to enter Bedenia

domestic doctors and nurses are also available : Incorrect

KarishmaB · Answer

Aim: to reduce dangerous wait times at emergency rooms in the country’s hospitals.

Plan:
Increase the number of available emergency nurses and doctors in urban settings: 
- scholarships and no-interest loans are being offered to work in major city hospitals, 
- relocation packages to urban centers are being offered for current emergency practitioners, and 
- immigration rules are being changed to enable foreign emergency doctors and nurses to more easily move to Bedenia’s major cities.

I see an immediate gap with the aim and the plan. The aim is to reduce dangerous wait times in country's hospitals. The plan is to increase doctors and nurses in major cities. It does not try to increase doctors and nurses everywhere in the country, only in major cities.

To evaluate whether the plan will work, I need to know whether the hospitals of major cities are the ones that have dangerous wait times. What if rural hospitals have few docs and nurses and hence dangerous wait times but the urban centres have enough docs and nurses already?

A. What percentage of current nurses and doctors work in emergency medicine

Doesn't matter. The plan is to increase whatever the current number is.

B. Which hospitals in Bedenia have dangerous wait times in their emergency rooms

Correct as we discussed above. 
 
C. Whether a career in emergency medicine pays substantially less than other types of medicine
 
Irrelevant

D. Whether wait times could be reduced by means other than increasing the number of available nurses and doctors
 
Irrelevant. We need to find whether our plan will work or not. Whether there exists a better plan or an alternate plan is irrelevant.

E. Whether many foreign doctors and nurses are currently not allowed to enter Bedenia

Doesn't matter. We are trying to increase the number, whatever that number is right now.

Answer (B)

jabhatta2 · Answer

Hello experts -  DmitryFarber   VeritasKarishma   GMATNinja  - I know for evaluate questions, there is normally a yes/no split when it comes to the answer choices.

One split in the correct answer choice will STRENGTHEN the argument whereas another split will WEAKEN the argument.

For option B, the split for "which hospitals......." seems to be 
-- Urban hospitals
-- Rural hospitals

What is the split for Option A ? 
Is it perhaps ? 
-- High percentage 
vs. 
-- Low percentage

KarishmaB · Answer

Since (A) asks for the percentage of doctors that are emergency doctors, the answer could be a high percentage or a low percentage. In either case, it is irrelevant to our argument. 
Out of 100 total doctors, whether 10 work in emergency, or 60 work in emergency doesn't matter. Whatever the number is, it is falling short. The plan does not include training regular doctors to become emergency doctors so whatever the number, it won't help us figure whether our plan will achieve its aim or not. What else can achieve our aim is irrelevant.

Krishnahelps · Answer

Veritas Prep Official Solution:

This argument contains some clever wordplay that is easy to overlook. The goal of the initiative is to reduce dangerous wait times at emergency rooms in the country’s hospitals, but the initiative relates entirely to urban hospitals. What if almost all of the dangerous wait times occurred in rural or suburban hospitals?

To determine whether this initiative will be successful, you need to know which hospitals have dangerous wait times (are they urban hospitals or not), so answer choice (B) is correct.

The percentage of current nurses and doctors working in emergency medicine and pay rates for emergency medicine are not relevant to the success of this initiative so (A) and (C) are wrong.

(D) is a trickier incorrect answer choice. This initiative as described is about getting more nurses and doctors available in emergency rooms. Whether or not there might be other ways to decrease wait times is not relevant to this initiative – you need information that helps assess whether this initiative will work, not whether other ones are possible.

(E) also does not matter in assessing this initiative – while the goal is to encourage foreign doctors and nurses to come to urban hospitals, it is not important to know how many in general have been unable to enter the country.

Answer is (B).

jabhatta2 · Answer

MartyTargetTestPrep   sayantanc2k   IanStewart   DmitryFarber 
 i thought E was wrong for 2 reasons. Was curious if you thought both reasons were legitimate ways to eliminate E

Reason 1

Reason 2

sayantanc2k · Answer

Both of your reasons are refutable:

Reason 1:
The initiative is to  reduce  dangerous waiting times. Even if only the foreign doctors contribute in some way in the reduction of waiting time, then the initiative is indeed successful, irrespective of whether the domestic doctors also play a role. So as you correcrtly judged, this way of eliminating answer may be dangerous for an  evaluation  type question.

Reason 2:
The current situation does not matter, because the "immigration rules are being changed to enable foreign emergency doctors and nurses to more easily move". So, if the current rules do not allow any foreign doctor, then it is likely that after the change there will be at least some foreign doctors who will contribute to the initiative.
On the other hand if the current rules already allow foreign doctors, it is likely that easing the current rules will allow more foriegn doctors who will contribute to the initiative.

Spamittttttttt · Answer

One of the measures is "immigration rules are being changed to enable foreign emergency doctors and nurses to more easily move to Bedenia’s major cities." And if we consider E then if the answer is Yes, then the plan can be successful since it will alow more nurses and doctors to come in. However, if the answer is no then it means maximum possible doctors and nurses are already coming in. I am a bit confused. what do you think of this reasoning?

AdjustedEbitdad · Answer

Request a detailed explanation. I get B makes sense, but C also seems strong to me

Ghoskrp3 · Answer

Stuck in B & D?

Evaluating "D.  Whether wait times could be reduced by means other than increasing the number of available nurses and doctors"-   Yes, absolutely evaluating this will help determine if the initiative's implementation would ensure success,    BUT    we are not talking about the implementation's success now, are we? (   because as given     officials have recently implemented a new healthcare initiative   ), it's an already implemented initiative and we can't rollback on this now! and why would you look for alternatives now when we already have been given a definitive plan of action right,    hence here this falls apart and we have to think, which factor's evaluation will back the already implemented initiative's success

Evaluating "  B. Which hospitals in Bedenia have dangerous wait times in their emergency rooms   "-   It's already an implemented solution and we have to go with this plan (regardless we are onboard with it or not) and now we are called to see what factors would be most important in determining whether this initiative will be a success?, so let's quickly see all those hospitals which need immediate attention from us and start fixing wait times in there first and then move ahead to the next ones and so on. Hence, it will help ensure success
 
  Hence Option B

In the country of Bedenia, officials have recently

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